Hindu Texts

• What do we already know about the history of the Hindu tradition?

• What do we mean by ‘sacred text’?

Hindu Texts

Sruti

“that which is heard”

Smriti

“that which is remembered”

• The Four Vedas

• Upanishads

• The Ramayana

• The Mahabharata

• The Bhagavad Gita

The Vedas

• ‘Veda’ = ‘knowledge’• Written in Vedic Sanskrit• The four Vedas are: Rig Veda

Sama Veda

Yajur Veda

Atharva Veda

Rig Veda - A collection of 1,028 hymns to various deities. It also contains many mythological and poetical accounts of the origins of the world

Sama Veda – ‘Sama’ means ‘melody’ and so this text is a copy of the Rig Veda’s hymns set to music. It was used as liturgy by the priests in ritual sacrifices

Yajur Veda – Mantras from the Rig Veda are paired up with certain sacrificial actions

Atharva Veda – This text is less concerned with sacrifice, but more with magic that will protect the individual against evil. It also contains philosophical hymns.

Upanishads

• ‘To sit at the feet of’ – What do you think this means?

• There are more than 200 Upanishads• We learn about many of the central

concepts to the Hindu tradition from these books – What are they?

Karma Moksha

BrahmanSamsara

Atman

The Ramayana

• One of the two great Indian Epics. The original poem was written by the poet Valmiki and was a 24,000 couplet long poem.

• It tells of life in India around 1,000BCE.• It tells of the story of Rama and Sita –

Who is Sita an avatar of?• It centres around the important concept

of dharma.

The Mahabharata & Bhagavad Gita

• The second of India’s great Epics.• It has over 200,000 individual lines of

verse, fitted into 18 books.• Tells the story of a warring cousins, of

good against evil.• The Bhagavad Gita is a small section of

the Mahabharata and deals with Krishna talking to Arjuna about his guilty feelings surrounding the war

• It is a collection of subtales that mutually illuminate each other.

QUESTIONS

Answer the following questions :

a. Give two differences between “Shrutis” and “Smritis”.

b. Give two main messages of Hindu Scriptures for Mankind which appeal to you. Why do they appeal to you?