Hindu texts Vedas: the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda and the Atharvaveda. Each Veda has been subclassified into four major text types – the Samhitas (mantras and benedictions), the Aranyakas (text on rituals, ceremonies, sacrifices and symbolic-sacrifices), the Brahmanas (commentaries on rituals, ceremonies and sacrifices), and the Upanishads (text discussing meditation, philosophy and spiritual knowledge). The Upanishads are a collection of Hindu texts which contain some of the central philosophical concepts of Hinduism. The Upanishads are commonly referred to as "Vedānta", variously interpreted to mean either the "last chapters, parts of the Veda" or "the object, the highest purpose of the Veda".
Religion in ancient Rome senatorial protest was expressed in a letter by Quintus Aurelius Symmachus to the Western and Eastern emperors. Ambrose, the influential Bishop of Milan and future saint, wrote urging the rejection of Symmachus's request for tolerance. Yet Theodosius accepted comparison with Hercules and Jupiter as a living divinity in the panegyric of Pacatus, and despite his active dismantling of Rome's traditional cults and priesthoods could commend his heirs to its overwhelmingly Hellenic senate in traditional Hellenic terms. He was the last emperor of both East and West. Religion in ancient Rome Religion in Ancient Rome includes the ancestral ethnic religion of