Shruti, Smriti and the Vedic Corpus

Overview

Recall questions on the distinction between heard and remembered scripture, the four Vedas, the Upanishads, and the epics.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Distinguish shruti from smriti.

   Model answer

   Shruti means what was heard: revelation received by the rishis rather than composed by them, and held by many Hindus to be apaurusheya, without human author, eternal sound that the sages perceived. Smriti means what is remembered: composed by identifiable human authors, drawing on and applying revelation. The consequence is a difference of authority. Where the two conflict, shruti in principle prevails, and smriti's standing rests on its faithfulness to shruti.

2. 2

   What actually counts as shruti?

   Model answer

   The four Vedas, Rig, Sama, Yajur and Atharva, each with four layers of material: the Samhita of hymns, the Brahmanas explaining and prescribing ritual, the Aranyakas or forest texts, and the Upanishads. All four layers carry revealed status, which matters, because it means the philosophical Upanishads and the ritual manuals hold the same rank and Hindu schools have argued ever since about which layer gives the Veda its true purport.

3. 3

   Why are the Upanishads called the beginning of Hindu philosophy?

   Model answer

   Because they shift the question. Instead of asking how a rite should be performed, they ask what reality is and who the questioner is, and they answer with the identification of atman and Brahman, the doctrines of karma and rebirth, and the goal of liberating knowledge. They proceed by dialogue, image and paradox rather than by system, and they include the negative method of denying every description of Brahman. They are called Vedanta, the end of the Veda, in the double sense of coming last and of carrying its purpose.

4. 4

   Why do the Vedanta schools depend so heavily on a particular set of texts?

   Model answer

   Because Vedanta is a commentarial discipline. A thinker establishes a position by expounding the three foundational sources, the prasthanatrayi: the principal Upanishads, Badarayana's Brahma Sutras which compress the Upanishadic teaching into terse aphorisms, and the Bhagavad Gita. Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva each expounded all three, though Ramanuja set out his reading of the Upanishads in an independent treatise rather than in commentaries. That is precisely why their disagreement is so sharp: they are not choosing different scriptures but reading the same ones to opposite conclusions.

5. 5

   Which texts count as smriti?

   Model answer

   The two great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the latter containing the Bhagavad Gita; the eighteen major Puranas with their cosmologies, genealogies and deity narratives; the Dharmashastra literature including the Manusmriti; and, for particular communities, the Agamas and Tantras and works such as the Tamil hymns of the Alvars. This is the literature most Hindus actually know.

6. 6

   What do the Puranas do that the Vedas do not?

   Model answer

   They tell stories about the deities people actually worship, and they teach ethics through those stories rather than through precept. They are sectarian, so a Vaishnava Purana such as the Bhagavata elevates Vishnu and Krishna while a Shaiva or Shakta Purana elevates Shiva or Devi, and they supply the material for temple worship, festival, pilgrimage and vrata observance. They are also open in a way the Veda is not: they were told and heard by anyone, including women and those excluded from Vedic study.

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