Indian religions these hero stones to bless them with victory. The documented history of Indian religions begins with the historical Vedic religion, the religious practices of the early Indo-Aryans, which were collected and later redacted into the "Samhitas" (usually known as the Vedas), four canonical collections of hymns or mantras composed in archaic Sanskrit. These texts are the central "shruti" (revealed) texts of Hinduism. The period of the composition, redaction and commentary of these texts is known as the Vedic period, which lasted from roughly 1750 to 500 BCE. The Vedic Period is most significant for the composition of the four Vedas,
Vedas Sampurnanand Sanskrit University has a Rigveda manuscript from the 14th century; however, there are a number of older Veda manuscripts in Nepal that are dated from the 11th century onwards. The Vedas, Vedic rituals and its ancillary sciences called the Vedangas, were part of the curriculum at ancient universities such as at Taxila, Nalanda and Vikramashila. The term "Vedic texts" is used in two distinct meanings: The corpus of Vedic Sanskrit texts includes: The Vedas (sruti) are different from Vedic era texts such as Shrauta Sutras and Gryha Sutras, which are smriti texts. Together, the Vedas and these Sutras form