Parents ask for “Vedic education” for their children and usually mean one of three quite different things: Vedic chanting, general values and heritage classes, or simply knowing what the Vedas are and what is in them. This article is about the third, which is the one most parents actually want and the one least often answered.
The short version: start with stories, not texts; add a few famous lines with their meaning; leave the texts themselves for later. Below is what the Vedas are, in words a child can hold; nine Upaniṣad stories in three age bands; six lines worth learning; and where chanting fits.
What the Vedas are, in words a child can hold
The Vedas are the oldest texts of the Indian tradition. For a very long time they were not written down at all: they were memorised and passed on by voice, teacher to student, with extraordinary care over every sound. Scholars date the oldest hymns of the Ṛg Veda to the second millennium BCE; the tradition itself regards the Vedas as śruti, “what was heard”, revealed rather than composed by anyone.
There are four:
- Ṛg Veda: hymns of praise, over a thousand of them, to fire, dawn, the sun, the rivers, the storm.
- Sāma Veda: many of those same verses, set to melody for singing.
- Yajur Veda: the formulas spoken while a ritual is performed.
- Atharva Veda: hymns for everyday life: health, home, protection, getting along.
Each Veda has layers, and the last layer is the Upaniṣads. That is where the questions a child recognises are asked out loud: who am I, what is real, what happens when we die. They are often told as conversations between a teacher and a student, which is exactly why they work for children.
Two things that are often called Vedic are not in the Vedas. The Bhagavad Gītā is part of the Mahābhārata, though it draws heavily on the Upaniṣads. And Vedic Maths, despite the name, was set out in the twentieth century by Bhāratī Kṛṣṇa Tīrtha, and its sixteen sūtras have not been found in any known Vedic text. Both are worth learning. Neither is the Vedas.
Start with stories: nine, by age
The Upaniṣads contain some of the best teaching stories anywhere, and most parents have never heard them. Tell them rather than read them: a story told by a parent at bedtime does more than a paragraph read off a page. The source is given for each, so you can read the original yourself first.
Ages 5 to 7: stories with one clear picture
The thunder that says “Da”
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 5.2
Three groups go to their teacher for advice, and he answers each with the single sound “da”. Each hears a different word in it: be restrained (dāmyata), give (datta), be kind (dayadhvam). The Upaniṣad says the thunder still repeats it: da, da, da. Children love being told to listen for it in the next storm.
The two birds on one tree
Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 3.1.1
Two birds sit on the same branch. One eats the fruit, sweet and bitter. The other simply watches. That is the whole image, and a young child needs nothing more; an older one can be asked which bird they are at a given moment.
The banyan seed
Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.12
A father asks his son to break open a tiny banyan seed. “What do you see?” “Nothing.” And from that nothing, the father says, the great tree grows. Best told with a real seed, or a fig, on the table.
Ages 8 to 11: stories with a question in them
Salt in water
Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.13
The same father asks his son to drop salt into water overnight and bring it back. The salt cannot be seen or picked out, yet every sip tastes of it. Do this one as an experiment in the kitchen before telling the story.
Satyakāma and the four hundred cows
Chāndogya Upaniṣad 4.4 to 4.9
A boy tells a teacher the plain truth about himself when a lie would have been easier, and is accepted for it. He is sent away with four hundred thin cows and told to come back when they number a thousand, and on the way he learns from a bull, a fire, a swan and a diving bird. Children like counting the cows.
Naciketā’s three wishes, the first part
Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.1
A boy is sent to Yama, the lord of death, waits three days at his door without food, and is given three wishes in apology. The first two are easy to follow. Stop before the third, and let the child guess what he will ask.
Ages 12 to 14: the conversations
The pleasant and the good
Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.2.1 to 2
Naciketā’s third wish, and Yama’s attempts to buy him off with anything else. The teaching at its centre is the difference between what is pleasant (preyas) and what is good (śreyas): two roads, and a person chooses one. Teenagers argue with this, which is the point.
The chariot
Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.3.3 to 4
The body is a chariot, the senses its horses, the mind the reins, the intellect the driver. A picture a thirteen-year-old can draw, and then use.
Gārgī and Maitreyī
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 2.4, 3.6 and 3.8
Two women in the same Upaniṣad. Maitreyī asks her husband, the sage Yājñavalkya, whether wealth could make her immortal, and when he says no, asks for what would. Gārgī questions him in a public debate so persistently that he tells her to stop asking. Both are worth knowing about for any child, and they tend to surprise children who assumed these texts were only about men.
Six lines worth learning, with their meaning
Once a child knows a few of the stories, a handful of short lines from the same texts give them something to say, not only something to know. Each of these is short, each is famous, and each means something a child can use.
सत्यं वद । धर्मं चर ।
satyaṁ vada, dharmaṁ cara
Taittirīya Upaniṣad 1.11.1
Speak the truth. Do what is right. Four words, and the advice a teacher gave students on the day they left. A five-year-old can say it and an adult can spend a lifetime on it.
मातृदेवो भव । पितृदेवो भव । आचार्यदेवो भव । अतिथिदेवो भव ।
mātṛdevo bhava, pitṛdevo bhava, ācāryadevo bhava, atithidevo bhava
Taittirīya Upaniṣad 1.11.2
Let your mother be as a god to you, your father, your teacher, and your guest. The same shape four times, one word changing. Children learn it in a day, and the last one, the guest, starts a good conversation about why a stranger at the door would be on the list.
सत्यमेव जयते ।
satyam eva jayate
Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 3.1.6
Truth alone wins. India’s national motto, written beneath the Aśoka lion emblem on the state seal. Children are usually surprised that a line from an Upaniṣad is also a national motto.
सं गच्छध्वं सं वदध्वं सं वो मनांसि जानताम् ।
saṁ gacchadhvaṁ saṁ vadadhvaṁ saṁ vo manāṁsi jānatām
Ṛg Veda 10.191.2
Walk together, speak together, let your minds be of one accord. From the last hymn of the Ṛg Veda. A good line for a family or a class to say together, because it is about saying things together.
आ नो भद्राः क्रतवो यन्तु विश्वतः ।
ā no bhadrāḥ kratavo yantu viśvataḥ
Ṛg Veda 1.89.1
Let good thoughts come to us from every side. Worth teaching to an older child for the idea in it: good ideas are welcome from anywhere, not only from our own side.
उत्तिष्ठत जाग्रत प्राप्य वरान्निबोधत ।
uttiṣṭhata jāgrata prāpya varān nibodhata
Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.3.14
Arise, awake, and learn by going to those who know. Twelve and up. It comes from the Naciketa story, so it lands best once the child knows who is being told to wake up.
Two more, which most families already know, belong on the same list: asato mā sad gamaya, “lead me from the unreal to the real” (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.3.28), and the Gāyatrī mantra (Ṛg Veda 3.62.10). You can hear the Gāyatrī chanted slowly, with its meaning, on our shloka page.
Where chanting fits
Vedic chanting proper is sung with pitch accents, the svaras, and the accents are part of the text: the same words with different accents are, to the tradition, not the same verse. It is taught teacher to student within particular traditions, and UNESCO recognised the tradition of Vedic chanting in 2003 as part of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity, largely for the methods that keep every sound intact across generations.
Traditions differ on who learns accented chanting, and when. That is a question for a teacher of your own tradition, and a family that wants it should go to one.
What any child can learn, from any teacher who knows the language well, is the meaning of the famous lines and their pronunciation in plain recitation, the way the Gāyatrī and similar verses are said in daily prayer. That is what is taught here: the words said correctly, and understood.
How to do this at home
- One story a week, told, not read. Read it yourself first from the source given, then tell it in your own words.
- End on the question the story asks. Which bird are you? Where did the salt go? What would you have wished for? Do not answer it for them.
- Add one line when a story has earned it. Satyaṁ vada after Satyakāma. Uttiṣṭhata jāgrata after Naciketā.
- Get the pronunciation right from the start. A line learned with the wrong sounds is rehearsed wrong every time it is said, and needs unlearning later.
Where this is taught
Ms. Ishita Parikh holds an MA (Acharya) in Sanskrit from Central Sanskrit University, NPTEL Elite certification in spoken Sanskrit from IIT Kharagpur, and two teaching diplomas for young children. She reads these texts in the original and teaches them in English, live online.
These stories and lines are taught as a course, Stories from the Upaniṣads, for children: three age bands of 12 sessions, live online. If you would rather choose the stories yourself, design your own course and she sends a free lesson plan within two days. Shloka classes for children teach the daily prayers with their meaning, and the Bhagavad Gītā for ages 7 to 14 is the natural next step after the Upaniṣads.
Questions parents ask
What are the four Vedas, in simple words?
The Rig Veda is a collection of hymns of praise. The Sama Veda sets many of those verses to melody for singing. The Yajur Veda holds the formulas spoken during rituals. The Atharva Veda gathers hymns for everyday life: health, home, protection and harmony. Each Veda has layers, and the last layer, the Upanishads, is where the famous questions about the self and the world are asked, often as conversations between a teacher and a student.
At what age can a child start learning about the Vedas?
From about five, through stories told aloud rather than texts read. Short Upanishad stories with a clear picture in them, such as the thunder that says “Da” or the two birds on one tree, work at five to seven. Stories with a question in them, such as the salt dissolved in water, work from about eight. The longer conversations, such as Nachiketa and Yama, are best from about twelve, when a child can hold an argument over two sittings.
Which Upanishad stories are good for children?
For five to seven: the thunder that says “Da”, the two birds on one tree, and the banyan seed. For eight to eleven: the salt in water, Satyakama and the four hundred cows, and the first part of Nachiketa. For twelve to fourteen: Nachiketa’s choice between the pleasant and the good, the chariot of the body, and the questions Gargi and Maitreyi put to the sage Yajnavalkya.
Can my child learn Vedic chanting?
Vedic chanting with its pitch accents, the svaras, is a discipline of its own, taught teacher to student within particular traditions, and traditions differ on who learns it and when. Families who want it should ask a teacher of their own tradition. What any child can learn is the meaning of the famous Vedic lines and their correct pronunciation in plain recitation, which is how the Gayatri and similar verses are said in daily prayer.
Is the Bhagavad Gita part of the Vedas?
No. The Vedas are shruti, what was heard, and the tradition regards them as revealed rather than composed. The Gita is part of the Mahabharata, which belongs to smriti, what is remembered. The Gita draws heavily on the Upanishads, and some of its verses echo them closely, which is why the two are so often mentioned together.