शास्त्रों

 SCRIPTURES 

We can proudly say that Sanatan Dharam (Hinduism) is the only major religion of the world with 1.2 billion devoted followers. We should be blessed that we were born under this spiritual religion. Sanatan dharam can neither be traced to a specific founder/ leader/ messenger nor a specific holy book as the one & only scriptural authority. Sanatan Dharam is the oldest surviving religion with its roots tracing back to prehistoric times. Over the period of time Indus Valley Civilization gifted a number of holy books to the world including the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Puranas. Later on, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagwad Gita and the list goes on…

There are wide verities on शास्त्र / Scriptures/ Religious texts mentioned to spread the teachings of Sanatan Dharam.

World’s oldest literature are the Vedas, a collection of religious and philosophical poems & hymns composed over several generations beginning as early as 3000 BC. The Vedas were composed in Sanskrit.

Vedas comes from the root sound of Vid meaning knowledge. Vedas believes that knowledge is infinite/eternal, just like GOD is eternal hence is the knowledge. Ved is considered to be aakasha-vaani meaning a sound originated from cosmos/space.

The central holy books of Sanatan Dharam are the 4 Vedas. Sanatanis regard them as spoken by God to the rishis and henceforth. They are in Sanskrit. The Vedas were not written down but memorized. Students might spend years learning these scriptures. It was passed on through the guru-shishya param-para/lineage over millennia. The relationship between the people of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization and those who composed the Vedas is not clearly understood. We know that the Rig Veda describes the Sarasvati as the “most mighty of rivers” flowing from the Himalayan mountains to the ocean. Therefore, the holy texts had to be composed well before 2000 BCE (by which time the river had dried up). The Vedas describe about powerful, spiritual people and clans.

The Vedas contain thousands of hymns in praise of the Gods. It was the golden age for Bharat (India). There was widespread prosperity and remarkable social stability. Unlike the scriptures of other religions, the Vedas are not thought to have been revealed to a certain specific person/messenger/ leader or persons at a specific historical moment; they are believed to have always existed in time and were held by sages in deep meditative states at some point.

The Vedas are the first “open source” knowledge system that ever existed. Krishna Dvaipāyana (Krishna – dark complexion and Dvaipāyana – birthplace i.e. island) also known as Veda-Vyasa or Maharishi-Vyasa who is credited as a possible author is not an “author” (If you have noticed the Vyasa appears at many stages of Mahabharata which is also written by him). He is more of a person who compiled and organised the Vedas into 4 categories for everyone’s benefit.

Vedas are touching all aspects of human life, including science, economics and politics. All stages of human life are standing on the spiritual wisdom of Vedas applicable in daily life for the goodness of humankind till today. The 4 Vedas are:

•  – Rig-Veda
•  – Atharva-Veda
•  – Sama-Veda
•  – Yajur-Veda

Shruti means that which has been heard or communicated by a tradition guru-shishya param-para with no starting point. Vedas & Upanishads are Shruti Scriptures.

Smriti means which is remembered or author by an individual. Eg. Puranas.