The Structure Of Scriptures in Hinduism

There is but one Absolute Truth and that is Consciousness. In ancient India, this was called Brahman. Every religion has used different words to describe this absolute Truth. But the concept of this Truth is so difficult to understand that almost all religions have different types of scriptures to convey the Truth to different categories of people. I will try to put down my understanding of the Indian scriptures.

At the highest level of the Scriptures are the Vedas. Vedas are not written by anyone. They are just the words of the God. It is like a user’s manual that God created when he created the Universe! The Vedas are 4 in number: Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharvana. The compilation of the Vedas under the above 4 headings was done by Shri Ved Vyasas who is considered an incarnation of God.

The Vedas themselves have 4 sections. The first section (Samhitas)  has invocations for different forces of nature(. The next section (Brahmanas)  has details of how various ceremonies should be done. The third section(Aranyakas) has highly philosophical thoughts, which are supposed to be studied in isolation. The final section has the cream jewel of the Vedas and is called the Upanishads. This section has the highest spiritual knowledge ever recorded anywhere.  There are several Upanishads and of them some are classified as major Upanishads and the rest as minor. Some of the major Upanishads are Brihadaranyaka, Mundaka, Mandukya, Katha, Prashnopanishad, Chandogya, and Ishavasya etc.

The Upanishads again were difficult to comprehend. In order to enable understanding of the Upanishads, there were Brahmasutras. These are aphorisms or short sentences that act as pointers to the wisdom contained in the Upanishads. I would like to think of the Brahmasutras as the individual items used in a Power Point presentation. They are just pointers to the main knowledge that is in the Upanishad.

Next in importance to the Vedas are the two major epics: The Ramayana and the Mahabharatha. They are called as Ithihasa or historical books. Though the story may have been expanded since it really happened thousands of years ago, there is no denying the timelessness of the story and the message. The Ramayana talks of an ideal person Rama whose wife Sita was kidnapped by Ravana and how Rama gets her back. The Ramayana also has gems of spiritual wisdom embedded in its story. Since the story is easily understandable, it gives an opportunity for the less intellectually inclined people to get exposed to spiritual concepts. The Mahabharatha documents the story of a family with warring cousins. The Mahabharatha has within it the Bhagwad Gita, the immortal message of Lord Shri Krishna to the warrior Arjuna who refused to fight. It contains such fantastic spiritual wisdom in a distilled form that it is one of the most widely read and commented books in the world.

Next in importance to the great epics is what are called as Puranas. They contain stories about Gods, demons etc. Embedded within the stories are nuggets of spiritual wisdom for the emotionally inclined. There are several puranas and again some are classified as major Puranas and some are minor. Among the major puranas are the Vishnu Purana, the Garuda Purana etc and the crown jewel among the puranas, which is the Bhagavatham.

After these ancient texts, there were great philosophers and spiritual leaders in the past 1500 years. One of the tallest among them is Shankaracharya. His commentaries on the Vedas, the Bhagwad Gita, and the Upanishads etc helped practically revive the moribund society that India had become around the 8^th century AD. His books include the Viveka Choodamani, one of the greatest books for a novice to start understanding spirituality. Starting from the absolute basics, the great master takes the reader to the highest knowledge. Another great thinker around that time was Shri Madhvacharya and one of his classics is the Mahabharatha Tatparya Nirnaya, which talks of the Mahabharatha from a perspective of why various events happened.

All other spiritual books have used the above as a base for further distilling the information and to make it available for the common people.

I owe my humble gratitude to all the masters whose way has shown a ray of hope for the millions in getting rid of sorrow and to attain the ultimate Bliss.