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
Glossary of ancient Roman religion laws, and science of Etruscan religion and cosmology was known as the "disciplina Etrusca". Divination was a particular feature of the "disciplina". The Etruscan texts on the "disciplina" that were known to the Romans are of three kinds: the "libri haruspicini" (on haruspicy), the "libri fulgurales" (lightning), and the "libri rituales" (ritual). Nigidius Figulus, the Late Republican scholar and praetor of 58 BC, was noted for his expertise in the "disciplina". Extant ancient sources on the "Etrusca disciplina" include Pliny the Elder, Seneca, Cicero, Johannes Lydus, Macrobius and Festus. The adjective "divus", feminine "diva", is usually translated as "divine." As