As reported, thirty manuscripts of the ancient Hindu text Rig Veda dating from 1800 to 1500 BC are among 38 new items that have been added to the United Nations heritage list to help preserve them for posterity. The items have been included in the ‘Memory of the World Register’ set up by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), bringing to 158 the total number of inscriptions on the Register so far.

Here is another news:

July 12, 2007; Washington, DC – History was created today when the United States Senate opened its session with Gayatri Mantra from Rig-Veda, the oldest Hindu text composed around 1,500 BCE.

Rajan Zed, a Hindu chaplain from Reno, Nevada, before starting the prayer, sprinkled few drops of water from Ganges River of India, considered holy in Hinduism, around the podium in US Senate.

Zed’s prayer included recitations from Brahadaranyakopanisad and Tattiriya Upanisad. Zed read from third chapter of Bhagavad-Gita (Song of the Lord). Sporting saffron colored robe, rudraksh mala, sandal paste tilak, and Hare Ram Hare Krishan inscribed yellow shawl, Zed ended his prayers with the last mantra of Rig-Veda. His concluding line was “Peace, Peace, Peace be unto all” – the English translation of “Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.”

The Gayatri mantra is as follows —
OM BHURBHUVAHA SWAHA TATA SAVITUR VARENYAM BHARGODEVASYA DHIMAHI DHIYO YO NHA PRACHODYAT
MEANING ——

“We meditate the God who is the base of lives’ of universe, totally free from any sorrow, omnipresent, creates the universe, gives all pleasure/merriment,most supreme and acceptable, purest entity; May the God enlighten our minds with wisdom by His inspiration”.

It will be interesting to go through the detailed meaning through each word and its composition.

There is nothing Hindu in Veda and many religious scriptures that should be protested by some ignorant fundamentalists. The truth revealed by the Vedas is universal.

God’s foremost adjective is antmah, which means He is at the core of every atom.

Soul provides life to the body it dwells in, but who gives life to the soul? Purusha is soul and Uttam Purusha or Ultimate sustains the soul. The shape of God is actually unimaginable, achintya, therefore He appears to us according to our own imagination and choice. Immutable are His attributes. None is nearer than Him and no one is farther either, anantah.

God is paridheya, whom we can receive from all sides, at any time, at any place, within the soul. He is Truth, Knowledge, Infinite and Ultimate: satyam, gyanam, anantam, Brahm.

His name is greatest and potent of all: na tasya pratima asti, yasya naam mahadyashah. He is the basis of all creatures, One seen in many, and many in One:

Aiko Deva sarvabhuteshu, aiko bahusyam. The Vedas are the fountainhead of all knowledge.

God’s primeval and foremost name is Aum, also known as Pranavah. Aum encompasses all including sound, energy, matter, space, consciousness, air and light. The chanting of Aum has been termed as Udgeetha. This chant-ing can be mansik also which means silent repetition in mind imagining overall swarupa, form of the formless God.

‘You are never away from us but strange it is that we cannot see you. Your divine poetry (creation) never dies’.

Doing righteous deeds and surrendering unconditionally before Him qualifies the seeker to the rarest exalted position of liberation, severing connection with mundane world. “O, son of God, may you become like God, the deathless (but not God, since none can be Him).”

Only these thoughts and all such as these in scriptures of all religions can bring the world together and make it secular.