The first written documents are at least 3000 before today. The traditions, myths are influenced by the Persians (see Avastae). These early written documents are the Vedic Hymns. Whenever the word vedic appears it means there is a reference to the deity in these hymns. The collection of literature is called the vedas The other early texts used to determine the characters of the deities include the Brahmanas (description of ritual to follow in sacrificing animals), the Aranyakas and the Upanishads (mystic texts, raising many speculative conjectures).

The key concept is the eternal tension between creation and destruction. One always follows the other in a never ending cycle. The start, in the vedas, is creation from a cosmic egg floating in a primeval sea. The most often repeated hymn regarding creation is the one called usually Prajapati ('lord of progeny' or the creator) after the deityh who produces children using asceticism. One of his daughters is Dawn (in English) who is so beautiful that Prajapati's head is turned and he commits incest with her giving rise to the first men. This is clearly the root of the story of Brahma. In other hymns the goddess Aditi ('limitless one') and Daksha mate and bear seven offspring, all the major gods of the later Hindu pantheon. The offspring collectively are called Adityas ('from Aditi', see Adityas). There is another offspring, stillborn, who becomes the Sun. The gods are usually divided into the those friendly to humans ('Devas' - Devas and those not, the 'Asuras' - although in Persia the Asuras were friendly to humans.)

Besides the pull and tug between creation and destruction there is another way of viewing the universe which is that of constant transformation where everything in the universe changes from one thing to another. One formal way this is described in the vedas is the different incarnations of Vishnu. The different incarnations are called 'avatars'.

Sometime between 2400 B.C.E. and 1600 B.C.E. much of the oral vedas tradition was put into two vast works of literature, the Mahabarata, and the Ramayana. There are many stories, epics usually, which were written using these two texts as inspiration, one of which is Bhagavata Purana.