Hindu texts Prior to the start of the common era, the Hindu texts were composed orally, then memorized and transmitted orally, from one generation to next, for more than a millennia before they were written down into manuscripts. This verbal tradition of preserving and transmitting Hindu texts, from one generation to next, continued into the modern era. The Vedas are a large body of Hindu texts originating in ancient India, with its Samhita and Brahmanas complete before about 800 BCE. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit hymns, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. Hindus consider
Ancient Iranian religion in the ancient period. The religious information was rather oral both in composition and transmission. The non-Iranian sources are mainly Greek. The most important Greek source is Herodotus. Some of the Greek information on ancient Iranian religion is however unreliable. This is either because it is based on outright wrong information or based on misunderstandings. The historical reconstruction of ancient Vedic literature is also an important source. The earliest religious texts of the related Indo-Aryan peoples are indispensable for reconstructing the historical development of the ancient Iranian religion. The most important of these texts in this regard is the Rigveda.