The Vedas I

Understanding what the Buddha said requires looking at your mind, your motives, feelings and behavior. Understanding the language the Buddha used (turns of phrase, similes, analogies, etc), the subjects he discussed and how he chose to approach them, requires knowing something about the world he lived in. Take the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of Brahminism. At least some knowledge of the Vedas makes more sense of how and why the Buddha presented some of his teachings the way he did. Vedic Brahmins used to keep three sacred fires burning and worship them. In reference to this the Buddha spoke of the need to extinguish the three fires (i.e. greed, hatred and delusion). A brahman was considered accomplished if he knew (i.e. was able to recite from memory and to explain) the three Vedas. For the Buddha, a person was spiritually accomplished if he has realized the Three Knowledges (tevijja); arising and passing away of beings according to their kama, and the knowledge of the destruction of the defilements (A.I,165). According to the Vedas, the brahmins were the apex of humanity because they were born of or created from Brahma’s mouth. The Buddha said his enlightened disciples were the apex of humanity because they were ‘born’ of the Buddha’s mouth, ‘born of Dhamma, created by Dhamma’ (It.101). And of course the Vedas taught that one could only be a brahmin by being born of brahmin parents. For the Buddha, one became a brahmin by acting the way a brahmin was supposed to act (tam aham brumi brahmanam, Dhp.397-411). The brahmin sages spoke of the blissful, eternal Self (atman. In later Upanasadic thought sat, chit, ananda) while in contradistinction to this the Buddha a taught dukkha, anicca and anatta. These and dozens of other aspects of the Dhamma mirror in one way or another Vedic concepts, the Vedas being the basis of mainstream religious thought during the Buddha’s time.
Another important aspect of the Vedas that influenced Buddhism was how they were preserved and passed on. The old canard that critics of Buddhism always raise is that in being orally preserved for several centuries the records we have of the Buddha’s teachings must be very reliable, worthless even. In reality, long before Buddha, the brahmins had evolved ways of remembering and passing on the Vedic hymns with an extraordinary degree of accuracy. Many of the Buddha’s disciples were brahmins and they bought to their new faith the skills they had been schooled in as part of their education, and used them to preserve the Buddha’s words. There is an excellent article on Wikipedia called ‘Vedic Chant’ which explains how this was done. The article ‘Vedas’ is very informative too.
Quite apart from all this, at least some familiarity with the Vedas is a good anyway. They are amongst the most beautiful religious literature ever written. If you want to do this I would recommend Wendy Doniger’s (she of the new Kama Sutra translation, and numerous other excellent works) The Rig Veda published in Penguin Classics and available in most bookshops. Doniger’s translations are readable, clear and not overloaded with notes. Her selection and arrangement (108 hymns altogether) also offers a good introduction to this wonderful literature. All the old favorites are here – The Hymn to the Water, the Gambler’s Lament, the Hymn to Creation (Nasadiya), In Praise of Generosity, and my favorite, The Croaking of the Frogs. Some of this must have been familiar to the Buddha and he must have sometimes heard the melodious and hypnotic sound of the Vedas being chanted.
If you’ve never heard Vedic chanting have a listen to these two examples of it. This first one is a slightly modernized rendition of Vedic chanting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yS-Jky997Y
This second example is the real thing, done as it was done at the time of the Buddha. Brahmins can do this for hours at a stretch – with perfect intonation and without error.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tZv9utp-oc