Question: Are the Vedas Three or Four ?
SB 12.10.24, both verse and purport, speak of ‘TRAYI-MAYAM’ or three Vedas.
SB 5.22.4 likewise mentions 3 vedas, as does BG 9.17 “I am also the Rg, the Sama and the Yajur Vedas.”
Since the original Vedas are most commonly referred to as four, how to understand ‘trayi-mayam’ and ‘three Vedas’?
Answer by Romapada Swami:
Indeed, the Vedas are referred to as three in number throughout the Bhagavatam and other Sanskrit literature. In fact, they often just use the word “trayi” (“three”) to refer to the Vedas, without any other descriptor.
The reason for this is because there are three main poetic styles: The Rgveda contains hymns dedicated to various devas and revealed to different sages. The Sama-veda offers hymns in musical form, to be sung, while the Yajur Veda primarily has prose passages to be chanted during yajnas. The Atharva-veda, on the other hand, is a mix of all these three types of poetic forms. Furthermore, the Atharva-veda deals with household rituals, mantras for casting spells, and other more worldly affairs. This is why the Atharva veda is often left out of the list of the Vedas. Or, to look at it another way, because the Atharva-veda does not have a unique poetic style, it is included in the first three Vedas.
Either way, the Vedas as a whole are called trayi–three.
