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Question on Vedas
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To: alt-hindu@uunet.uu.net
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Subject: Question on Vedas
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From: nparker@crl.com (Nathan Parker)
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Date: 18 Mar 1995 09:51:50 -0800
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From nparker@crl.com Sat Mar 18 12: 41:01 1995
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Newsgroups: alt.hindu
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Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 705-6060 [Login: guest]
>I wonder why you include the Upanishads, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana,
>the Brahma Sutras etc. as comprising "Vedic" philosophy. They are
>influenced by the Vedas, no doubt, as are the Brahmanas and the Aranyakas,
>but they should not be considered part of the corpus of the Vedas. In my
>view, only the Samhitas are the Vedas.
>
>These other post-Vedic documents have other non-Vedic influences - Sankhya
>philosophy, Buddhism, the develoment of ritualism (as found in the
>Brahmana texts), the development of "sramana" asceticism (as found in the
>Aranyakas and Upanishads).
Generally in the Vedic lines, Veda refers directly to the original four
Vedas (each containing Samhitas, Mantras, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and
Upanishads), hence usually people when asking for a quote from sruti they
refer to the Upanishads. But the Vedic literatures are much more vast then
just these four books. In the sampradayas, Vedavyasa (Krishna Dvaipayana
Vyasa) is accepted as the compiler of the Vedas, and it is this same Vyasa
who is the author of the Puranas, Mahabharata, Vedanta-sutra, etc. Since
they are compiled by the same great sage (who was a saktyavesa avatara
according to the Puranas) so we accept that both sruti and smrti are
authoritative.
shruti-smRti-purANAdi
pan~carAtra vidhim vinA
aikAntikI harer-bhaktir
utpAtayaiva kalpate
"Devotional service that is not based on the instructions of the Sruti,
SmRti, PurANas, and Pan~carAtras is just a burden to society."
So we accept all of these shAstras as authortative. In the ChAndogya
UpaniShad it says that the Puranas and epics such as Mahabharata comprise
the fifth Veda. If you look at the Vedas today, they are actually not
shruti, they are also smRti. This is so because they are no longer learnt
by oral reception ("shruti" meaning that which is learnt orally). They are
also learnt by reading now, so they are also technically only smRti. But
because their goal is the transcendence, the Supreme Lord, so they are
accepted. But the actual goal of the Vedic literatures are to know Krishna:
vedaish ca sarvair aham eva vedyo
vedAnta-kRd veda-vid eva cAham
"By all the Vedas only I am to be known. Indeed I am the compiler of the
VedAnta, and I am the knower of the Vedas."
The goal of Vedic study is to know Krishna, therefore whatever book
teaches us to know Him (such as Bhagavad-gita, etc.) is actually Veda. The
root word of veda is vid, which means to know. So Veda means knowledge.
Knowledge of what? That is also explained by Krishna:
yo mAm evam asammUDho
jAnAti puruShottamam
sa sarva-vid bhajati mAm`
sarva-bhAvena bhArata
"Whoever knows Me as the Supreme Personality of Godhead (puruSha-uttama),
without doubting, is the knower of everything. He therefore engages
himself in full devotional service to Me, O son of Bharata."
So Veda means to know Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and
all these various literatures are meant for realizing that knowledge.
Therefore, as the Chandogya Upanishad says, they are all Veda.
