Dear Shri Krishna, I'll skip the first question, as my views on that topic is not consistent with our sampradaya. I'll also add two caveats - (a) Though I may quote 'pramANas' in my reply, the conclusions are my own and our traditionalists may disagree. (b) The reply may meander & ramble, for which I apologize immediately to people with low attention span. Q2(a): Why is it important to memorize the veda mantras? Q2(b): Can one directly skip this hard part and jump to learning 'meaning of the vedas'? Q2(c) Is a guru necessary to understand the meanings? Short answers: (a) Because, that is the way it is. (b) No (c) No. Long answers: (warning: rambling starts here...) Section 1: Rapid loss of vedic branches There used to be a saying - Even a cat in dakshinapatha knows taittiriyam (taittiriyam -> a branch of yajurveda). Recently, I was in the necessity of a qualified taittiriya expert who knows the intricacies of tritiyeshti or dashahotra sacrifices. Things didn't quite bear out. This is the condition of taittiriya yajurveda, which is supposedly a "secure vedic tradition". Imagine the condition of jaiminiya shakha of sama veda, where only about 5 80-year old gentlemen know the entire mantras. Or the Katha yajurveda, whose adherents are very limited in Kashmir and Himachal (already an insecure tradition) and which may die out in front of our own eyes. Or a handful of atharvavedis - who really belong to the atharvanic tradition (in contrast to recent revival attempts by Kanchi mutt, jeeyar mutt etc., where the focus in on mantra preservation with not so much attention on the meanings, context, applications etc). If turushkas destroyed couple of our vedic shakhas by invading & massacaring, we are finishing off whatever survived. If this trend continues, the hindus may have to learn about the vedas in western universities. All the traditions would have been lost and the vedas themselves would have become a museum piece. So, for (a) - Yes, one has to memorize the mantras for the simple reason of not losing our heritage & tradition. Section 2: Traditional method of learning The grihya sutras describe the "veda-vrata". After upanayana, one enters the veda vrata, which gets completed only after the "graduation bath" and the student becomes a snataka (Almost all grihya sutras describe this; Atharva veda parisishta). This student life is truly a "vrata" - this is a life full of restrictions, fasting and restraint and devotion to the acharya. Sexual transgression in this stage is a serious crime and the punishment is that the student has to offer a donkey to Nirrti and wear the skin of the donkey for one year and live only by begging. While begging he should proclaim his deed (Paraskara grihya sutra; Manu smriti). The Aranyaka portions are not even taught in the "village". The student and teacher goes to the forest and the teacher reveals the "secret teachings" there. Both of them undergo couple of vrata & restrictions during the previous day (Ashwalayana grihya sutra; shankhayana grihya sutra). This stuff goes on for atleast 12 years (There is a variation in no. of years across the sutras). It goes without saying that the guru/acharya is indispensable in this whole setup (for (c)). This anecdote is to give a picture of how one learnt the vedas traditionally. Section 3: Meanings & modes of interpretation There is traditionally 8 different modes of interpretation. So, the answer depends on what type of 'meaning' one is looking for. I am not even counting Arya Samaj type interpretation. I am skipping Aurobindo school of thought and the likes of Kapali Shastri & R.L.Kashyap. I am totally ignoring the Western Indologists' understanding. (They have made some important contributions, though). In one mode of interpretation, the recitation of the mantra - the sound pattern constitutes part of the picture. One ignores it at one's own risk. This interpretation is actually little known to people outside the tradition and western Indologists will never quite underst and it. (For details, read Yaska's Nirukta; Shaunaka's Brhaddevata). I also should add that all the traditional modes are not opposed to each other and in couple of instances they are complementary. So, for (b) - can one understand "wireless digital communication" without a teacher? Assuming one has sound knowledge of elctromagnetic wave theory, DSP, calculus, probability & stochastic processes, one can simply borrow few books from the library and hope to understand it. That is of course one has adquate background in the pre- requisites. This is a poor analogy: Coming back to the vedas - associated with them are the vedangas (limbs of the vedas). I have taken the liberty to include related material in the traditional limbs - (i)Shiksha, pratishakya, pada patha & allied texts - Deal with phonetics, pronounciation; preservation of the 'spoken word' and preventing corruption. This cluster has a non-trivial no. of texts. Take a moment to think about this and refer question (b) again. (ii) Vyakarana, the grammer, nirvachana - semantical analysis, sphota - theory of the word: Tools for vedic text analysis and interpretation (iii) Nirukta & Brhaddevata - Former is work on etymology/philology by Yaska. I included the latter because Shaunaka rejects couple of Yaska's views and gives his interpretation. (iv) Chandas - Actually the existing one describes both vedic metres and classical metres. (v) jyotisha & nakshatra vidya - Not same as our 'modern day josiyam'. I would define this branch in my own words as - time keeping based on astronomy for ritual purposes. (vi) kalpa sutras, parisishtas, anukramanis - The first one a topic in itself. I'll simply mention the divisions (srauta - crudely translated as solemn rituals, grihya - .... as domestic rituals, dharma sutras which later evolved into smritis (debatable) & shulba sutras - construction of various fire altars. (Baudhayana gives proof of pythogoras theorem in his shulba sutra - some 200 years before pythogoras). Parisishtas are usually supplement & complement kalpas. Anukramanis are indices of matras, meters and rishis. BTW, the very first attempt to interpret the mantras occur in brAhmaNa & AraNyaka portions themselves. The entire purpose of this rambling is to give the glimpse of what our forefathers developed to 'acquire the meaning' of the vedas. Part of the 'meaning' is in application is a different story and is yagnika mode of nterpretation. Sorry for rambling. Regards, Kasturi Rangan ------------------------ Yahoo! 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