Among the sacred books of India are the hymns of the Rig-Veda, the world's first recorded poems; the "magical texts" of the Athara-Veda; the stirring pantheistic speculations of the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad-Gita, a cosmic drama of divine self-revelation in human history on the field of human battle. Taken together they represent 3500 years of a continuous religious tradition that is multifarious, inclusive, and, at the same time, wedded to a central spiritual vision.