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
Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit its existence. Although he buttressed his arguments with familiar scholarship and ancient authorities, including scripture, he was labeled an atheist and at least a dozen hostile refutations of the work were published by 1782. Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit (1777) is a major work of metaphysics written by eighteenth-century British polymath Joseph Priestley and published by Joseph Johnson. Between 1774 and 1778, while he was serving as an assistant to Lord Shelburne, Priestley wrote five major metaphysical works, in which he outlined his materialist philosophy, even though such a position "entailed denial of