The Vedas - where are they?

January 22, 2004

The Vedas are supposed to be our Srutis, our most important and the original scriptures of the Hindus. The are spoken well of and glorified in probably all of the post-Veda scriptures such as Ramayan, Gita, Mahabharata and Puranas. It is said by some that all it takes to be a Hindu is to acknowledge the Vedas as our scriptures and practice religion through a sect with it's roots in the Vedas. But more sects are based on the Puranas or Ramayan and worship God through forms such as Vishnu, Shiva or Shakti and pay little attention to the Vedic deities such Agni, Indra and Rudra.

Now with all this emphesis placed on the Vedas, it makes me wonder - Where are the Vedas? Why has very few Hindus read them? Why are the so hard to get hold of? Even the Arya Samaj - who hold themselves up as the promoters of the Vedas don't seem to have many followers who read them. I wonder how many other 'hindu' organisations such as Hare Krishnas have read them, rather than repeating parrot-fashion what the last guru said!

In this day and age more Hindus seem to connect the Upanishads as the Jnana-kand (knowledge portion) of the Vedas and the only part of the Vedas worth knowing. The Samhita Mantras are oftern ignored even though they are the oldest portion of the Vedas...why is this?

I was wondering if any of you who may have studied the Vedas could throw some light on the matter as I don't have access to the Vedas and don't count translations from westeners as accurate.

It seems to me that the Bhagavad Gita is more the main scripture of Hinduism as this is the most likely scripture Hindus would read.

January 22, 2004

woudn't this suggest that people tend to follow pre vedic customs? if a person calls themself a 'hindu', does this mean they definitely follow the vedas?

January 23, 2004

No it doesn't suggest that. We don't know anything of pre-vedic customs especially in India.

It suggests most Hindus just "follow the leader" and don't attempt to learn about their own scripture which they yet revere so highly. So how can these 'vedic' branches of religion claim they are teaching what is in the Vedas when they or their sect does not study them?

In case you didn't know most Hindu sects would claim to be following a religion derived from the original Vedas. Apart from the Tantrics and who only follow the Agamas.