Peterburgian Vedism "to know" ("vedat")—a semantic root which is shared in Slavic and Sanskrit languages alike—, and it expresses the difference between sight or knowledge and dogmatic belief ("verit"), the latter being typical of non-Vedic doctrines. According to one of the contemporary leaders of the Peterburgian Vedic movement, Roman Perin, "Rodnovery" defines the practised religion, while "Vedism" defines the philosophy or knowledge at its core. Vedism therefore is not a religion but pure knowledge. According to Bezverkhy, dogmatic religions such as Christianity, but also Brahmanism (the successor of Vedism in India), were created in order to control the masses. Bezverkhy codified his
Historical Vedic religion Brahmanism is related to the metaphysical concept of Brahman that developed during the Vedic era. The concept of Brahman is posited as that which existed before the creation of the universe, which constitutes all of existence thereafter, and into which the universe will dissolve into, followed by similar endless creation-maintenance-destruction cycles. According to Indologist Jan Heesterman, the terms Vedism and Brahmanism are "somewhat imprecise terms". They refer to ancient forms of Hinduism based on the ideologies found in its early literary corpus. Vedism refers to the oldest version, states Heesterman, and it was older than Brahmanism. Vedism refers to the