The Veda Divided

Dvaipāyana saw that, age after age, time was throwing into disorder dharma, the right way of living that belongs to each age, and that the life and strength of mortals shrink as the ages turn. He knew all things, high and low, and he saw with his divine sight that the people of his time were without faith, without strength, dull of understanding, short-lived and unfortunate. He thought about what would be good for all of them.

Seeing that the sacrifice, the great Vedic rite of offering to the gods, is carried out by four priests, each with his own part in the rite, he divided the one Veda into four, so that the sacrifice might go on: the Ṛg, the Yajus, the Sāman and the Atharvan. The histories and the Purāṇas are called the fifth Veda. Because he divided the Vedas, he was called Vyāsa, the divider. He gave the Ṛgveda to Paila, the Sāman to the poet Jaimini, the Yajus to Vaiśampāyana, the Atharvan to the stern sage Sumantu, and the histories and Purāṇas to Romaharṣaṇa. He taught the Vedas, with the Mahābhārata as the fifth, to Sumantu, Jaimini and Paila, to his own son Śuka and to Vaiśampāyana, and each of them divided his own Veda further, so that through their pupils and their pupils' pupils the Veda came to have its many branches. He did all this out of tenderness for those of poor understanding, so that they too could hold the Veda.