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
Peterburgian Vedism Peterburgian Vedism Peterburgian Vedism (Russian: Ведизм), or more broadly Russian Vedism, is one of the earliest branches of the Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery) and one of the most important schools of thought within it. The earliest Vedic organisations were established in Saint Petersburg by Viktor Bezverkhy, between the late 1980s and early 1990s. The use of the term "Vedism" to refer to Slavic religion goes back to Yuri Mirolyubov, the writer or discoverer of the "Book of Veles". Besides Bezverkhy's organisations, the term "Vedism" is adopted by many other leaders within Rodnovery, for instance Aleksandr Asov, who equates it with