VedaPortal

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ॐ सह नाववतु | सह नौ भुनक्तु | सह वीर्यं करवावहै । तेजस्वि नावधीतमस्तु मा विद्विषावहै । ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥

Together may we two Move (in our Studies), Together may we two Relish (our Studies), Together may we perform (our Studies) with Vigour, May what has been Studied by us be filled with the Brilliance (of Understanding, leading to Knowledge); May it Not give rise to Hostility (due to lack of Understanding), Peace, Peace, Peace.

The big Vision

To become a central location to enable students to learn Vedas with the full power of deep learning tools.

Imagine if we could utter a fragment of a mantra for the engine to recognise what it is, pull up the appropriate chapter(s) in the original Vedic texts, say it in the proper swara, provide the context of where that is used and then let you try it & help correct mistakes in your pronunciation. What if we could generate images from the descriptions and help understand the various gods of the Vedas & what they did. For instance, the image below is generated by AI of the god Pushan from the descriptions.

I want all the Vedic texts to be properly brought in, organised, error corrected with tools to have text, audio and visual gestures to learn the Vedas in the most authentic way possible. And then undetstand the meaning, context and connections to learn Vedas in a way that was originally intended.

I see the current state of Vedic texts and find them very fragmented and non-accessible to seekers. The treasure trove of ancient Indian knowledge is still locked -- behind undocumented traditions, untranslated original manuscripts, not digitally translated books etc. While one needs a Guru to learn the Vedas properly, it is not feasible for all the Hindus to find a guru.

Desired features over the long run [a decade]:

1. Have the complete collection of all Veda mantras — including Brahmanas, Aranyakas, Upanishads, Upavedas & Vedangas -- in Devanagari with accents along with English (IAST). There should also be hand gestures [where needed] and voice recordings, along with linking the particular words with the audio file.
2. The text should be fully searchable [both with text & voice].
3. Meanings and significance of key texts. For Rig Samhita and most upanishads there would be readily available translations, but for some of other Samhitas the translations might be harder to find.
4. Meaning and signifance of key rituals -- including Somayajnas, Haviryajnas and some of the rare ones such as the Pravargya and Mahavrata. Same with the Pujas [that are possibly post-Vedic].
5. The devatas and rituals mentioned in the mantras and prose should be linked to separate pages about them.
6. AI Generated images based on text descriptions of the gods & rituals.
7. Speech recognition to both search a text as well as help a practioner fix mistakes in utterances.
8. Video recognition to replicate the gestures used in some Shakas

Initial thought on the navigation of the portal:

• Vedas > All mantras, meaning, interpretations
• Philosophical foundations > Vedanta, Mimamsa…
• Health > Ayurvedha, Yoga, Rasasastra
• Acharams > Based on Kalpasutras, Srautasastras, Smritis codify the rules [omitting or calling out a few that don’t fit with our modern morals] that are easily citable.
• Learning > Sanskrit, Vedas
• Personalities > Gods, Rishis, Kings and others
• Rituals > Pujas, Yajnas
• Stories > Ramayana, Mahabharatha, Puranas…
• Non-vedic prayer texts >