Philological estimates ténd to date thé bulk of thé text to thé second half óf the second miIlennium.īCE. The dating proposals so far are all inferred from the style and the content within the hymns themselves. In the éight books Books 2 through 9 that were composed the earliest, the hymns predominantly discuss cosmology and praise deities. It is one of the four sacred canonical texts ( ruti ) of Hinduism known as the Vedas. The pitch-accent is marked by underscores and vertical overscores in red.