The 6 vedāṅgas

The six vedāṅgas are regarded as the “limbs” of the Veda. Just as limbs enable the body to function, these auxiliary sciences enable the Veda to be preserved, understood, and practiced. Each attends to something essential: sound, meaning, or application. Four of them—śikṣā, chandas, vyākaraṇa, and nirukta—are devoted to Sanskrit itself, reflecting its central role in the transmission of Vedic knowledge. Preserved orally for centuries before writing became widespread, the Vedas relied on the exactness of language and sound. When eventually committed to writing, Sanskrit remained the medium, condensing knowledge into sūtras (“threads”) that could be memorized and elaborated by teachers. The other two vedāṅgas, jyotiṣa and kalpa, extend beyond language to guide ritual practice and human life more broadly.

• śikṣā – the science of pronunciation, safeguarding the exact sound of Sanskrit recitation.

• chandas – the study of poetic metre, preserving the rhythm and form of Vedic hymns.

• vyākaraṇa – grammar, establishing correct meaning and understanding; includes the renowned Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini (5th–6th century BCE).

• nirukta – etymology and explanation of difficult words, clarifying obscure or archaic terms.

• jyotiṣa – astronomy and astrology, ensuring rituals are performed at the proper times in harmony with cosmic order, and also offering guidance for human life in all times, ancient and modern.

• kalpa – ritual procedure, prescribing the correct performance of Vedic rites.

Resources & courses:

Veda Studies with Shantala Sriramaiah, is an excellent resource for learning śikṣā within a living, sanctioned, tradition.

Vedic Threads
Vedic Threads is Satsangam’s twice-monthly live, online membership where guest instructors introduce us to various Indian wisdom traditions. Some sessions that relate specifically to Jyotiṣa:

Affiliated Courses

A note about Sanskrit and Transliteration in Satsangam:

Here is a key to correct transliteration and to help with pronunciation.

Saṃskṛta or samskṛta means “well-constructed”. We at Satsangam do our best to honor this construction by employing accurate transliteration, using diacritical marks consistent with the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) scheme.

A few exceptions: since, “Sanskrit” and, “Ayurveda” have been adopted into the English language,  we will use these instead of their properly-transliterated forms: Saṃskṛta —or samskṛta — and, “āyurveda”. Also, the accurate transliteration of satsangam is, “satsaṅgama” but, as it is a proper name in this context, we have omitted the diacritical marks.

Pluralizing words: correctly-used Sanskrit does not use an, “s” at the end of a word to denote a plural (e.g. “Vedas”); the plural ending would be different for different words. For the sake of simplicity, we do use, “s” at the end of a word to denote plurality.