Shiksha

Shiksha (Sanskrit: शिक्षा IAST: śikṣā ISO: Śikṣā) is a Sanskrit word, which means “instruction, lesson, learning, study of skill”

It also refers to one of the six Vedangas, or limbs of Vedic studies, on phonetics and phonology in Sanskrit

Shiksha is the field of Vedic study of sound, focussing on the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, accent, quantity, stress, melody and rules of euphonic combination of words during a Vedic recitation

Each ancient Vedic school developed this field of Vedanga, and the oldest surviving phonetic textbooks are the Pratishakyas

The Paniniya-Shiksha and Naradiya-Shiksha are examples of extant ancient manuscripts of this field of Vedic studies

Shiksha is the oldest and the first auxiliary discipline to the Vedas, maintained since the Vedic era

It aims at construction of sound and language for synthesis of ideas, in contrast to grammarians who developed rules for language deconstruction and understanding of ideas

This field helped preserve the Vedas and the Upanishads as the canons of Hinduism since the ancient times, and shared by various Hindu traditions