The word “veda” has two basic meanings. The first, a literal translation of the Sanskrit word, is “knowledge”. The second, and most common meaning of the word, refers to the sacred ancient literature of Hinduism, the Vedas, a collection of hymns, poetry and Hindu ceremonial formulae. Believed to be one of the oldest human written records, the Vedas date back over 4000 years. Traditionally, they were passed down orally and adapted from generation to generation by sacred sages called rishis, before eventually emerging written in Vedic, an ancient form of Sanskrit.

Tremendous amounts of energy was expended by ancient Indian culture in ensuring that these texts were transmitted from generation to generation with inordinate fidelity. For example, memorization of the sacred Vedas included up to eleven forms of recitation of the same text. The texts were subsequently "proof-read" by comparing the different recited versions. Forms of recitation included the jatā-pātha (literally "mesh recitation") in which every two adjacent words in the text were first recited in their original order, then repeated in the reverse order, and finally repeated again in the original order. The recitation thus proceeded as:
word1word2, word2word1, word1word2; word2word3, word3word2, word2word3; ...

http://blogannath.blogspot.com/2009/06/introduction-to-vedic-mathematics.html