The Vedas are the oldest holy books of Hinduism, written in Sanskrit in ancient India more than three thousand years ago. They are the deepest layer of the religion — hymns, prayers, and instructions for religious ceremonies. There are four of them, and the best known is the Rigveda. Notice two things about how the word behaves. First, it is a proper noun, so it takes a capital V. Second, people usually say 'the Vedas' in the plural when they mean the whole collection, and 'a Veda' or 'the Rigveda' when they mean one of the four. This is a specialised word: you will meet it in a history class, a religion class, or a book about India, not in daily conversation. The adjective from it is Vedic, as in 'Vedic Sanskrit' or 'the Vedic period' — the stretch of Indian history when these texts were being made.