Vedic Literature: The Sruti And The Smriti:

The Sruti And The Smriti:

The Sruti and the Smriti are the two authoritative sources of Sanatana Dharma. This is a lengthy discussion so we have divided it into two parts that is Sruti and Smriti for better understanding.

Sruti literally means what is heard, and Smriti means what is remembered. Sruti is revelation and Smriti is tradition. Sruti is direct experience. Great Rishis heard the eternal truths of religion and left a record of them for the benefit of posterity. These records constitute the Vedas. Hence, Sruti is primary authority.

Smriti is a recollection of that experience. Hence, it is secondary authority. The Smritis or Dharma Sastras also are books written by sages, but they are not the final authority. If there is anything in a Smriti which contradicts the Sruti, the Smriti is to be rejected.

Vedic Literature Flow Chart

The Srutis:
The Srutis are called the Vedas, or the Amnaya. The Hindus have received their religion through revelation, the Vedas. These are direct intuitional revelations and are held to be Apaurusheya or entirely superhuman, without any author in particular. The Veda is the glorious pride of the Sanatana Dharma as well as of the whole world!

The term Veda comes from the root Vid, to know. The word Veda means knowledge. When it is applied to scripture, it signifies a book of knowledge. The Veda is the source of the other five sets of scriptures, why, even of the secular and the materialistic. The Veda is the storehouse of Indian wisdom and is a memorable glory which man can never forget till eternity.

Revealed Truth:
The Vedas are the eternal truths revealed by God to the great Rishis of India. The word Rishi means a seer, from DRIS, to see. The Rishi is the Mantra-Drashta, a seer of Mantra or thought. The thought was not his own. The Rishis saw the truths or heard them. Therefore, the Vedas are what are heard (Sruti). The Rishi did not write. He did not create it out of his mind. He was the seer of thought which existed already. He was only the spiritual discoverer of the thought. He is not the inventor of the Veda.

The Vedas represent the spiritual experiences of the Rishis of yore. The Rishi is only a medium or an agent to transmit to people the intuitional experiences which he received. The truths of the Vedas are revelations. All the other religions of the world claim their authority as being delivered by special messengers of God to certain persons, but the Vedas do not owe their authority to any one. They are themselves the authority as they are eternal, as they are the Knowledge of the Lord.

The Vedas are eternal; They are without beginning and end:
An ignorant man may say how a book can be without beginning or end. By the Vedas, no books are meant. Vedas came out of the breath of the Lord. They are the words of God. The Vedas are neither the utterances of persons nor the composition of any human mind. They were never written, never created. They are eternal and impersonal. The date of the Vedas has never been fixed. It can never be fixed. Vedas are eternal spiritual Truths. Vedas are an embodiment of divine knowledge. The books may be destroyed, but the knowledge cannot be destroyed. Knowledge is eternal. In that sense, the Vedas are eternal.

The Four Vedas And Their Sub Divisions:

The Veda is divided into four great books:
1. The Rig-Veda
2. The Yajur-Veda
3. The Sama-Veda
4. The Atharva-Veda

The four Vedas

The Yajur-Veda is again divided into two parts:
1. The Sukla Yajur-Veda
2. The Krishna Yajur-Veda.

The Krishna or the Tattiriya is the older book and the Sukla or Vajasaneya is a later revelation to Sage Yajnavalkya from the resplendent Sun-God.