𝙚𝙫𝙤𝙡𝙪𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙛 𝙫𝙚𝙙𝙖𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙫𝙚𝙙𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙖𝙨.

evolution of vedas and vedangas.

We have reason to believe that Vedas were in existence and were being chanted in some way or other,, even before the rules of Niruktham, Chandas Sheeksha, etc were formally introduced. ( the formal rules appeared centuries later)

Such rules were more or less formalization of the intonation in vogue which had happened naturally.. and of course there would have been some give and take during the formalization...

Take the case of music..

Music in its pure and original form occurred in nature in sounds of various frequencies, pitches and decibel levels..

Music was there in the flow of a stream, the noise of the wind changing its speed and rustling the leaves and trees, the drone of a bee, the cooing of a cuckoo, air sneaking in and out of reeds and so on..

But various races of people simply propounded some theories and chose to make certain musical notes following certain audio frequencies, leaving behind or suppressing the background noise..

The vocal chords when trained also did the same..

Music was already there.. It was just discovered by us,

Same with Veda chanting too..

The conversational words must have been arranged are tested to chanting, then words must have been rearranged to enable easier chanting, and then the vedic rendering pleasant to the ears and the heart took shape gradually..

Subsequently Yaska and others must have worked on the theories..

Vedas took shape as natural vocal praise of the humans in praise of the Supreme one

and

as vocal expressions of their pleasures and woes..

Application of the Vedic hymns for rituals and yajnas was a later epoch...

It can be seen that when the Vedic poetry was adapted to suit rituals and yajnas, the simple hymns till then were actually interpreted differently to suit the ritualistic purposes..

The Vedangas were actually the tools for that modification..

This we can understand if we just keep aside spiritualism and trace to analyze the evolution of Vedic literature applying simple laws of linguistics, etymology, pronunciation etc..

Any text on the cultural history of India either writted western or oriental authors have appreciated this issue..

Vedas, pre-Vedangas period, or post- Vedanga period are both great..

We can be proud of that even without taking the help of hardcore ritualism..