brief introduction to Hindu texts
Some hint the beginnings of the Hindu custom to the archaeological stays of the Harappan Civilization, relationship to the third millennia BCE.
There are two historic classifications of Hindu texts: Shruti and Smriti. The Śruti refers back to the most authoritative, historic spiritual canon of Hinduism. It consists of the 4 Vedas together with its 4 varieties of embedded texts – the Samhitas, the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas and the early Upanishads. The Smriti, a spinoff work, consists of however shouldn’t be restricted to Vedāngas, Hindu epics, Sutras, Shastras, Puranas, Kāvya , Bhasyas, and Nibandhas.
The Hindu texts have been composed and transmitted orally for greater than a millennia earlier than they have been written down.
The Vedas (“information”), composed in Vedic Sanskrit, represent the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature. Within the Hindu Epic the Mahabharata, the creation of Vedas is credited to Brahma. The Vedic hymns themselves assert that they have been skillfully created by Rishis (sages).
The Upanishads are generally known as Vedānta, “the very best objective of the Veda”. The ideas of Brahman and Ātman are central concepts in all of the Upanishads.
The Puranas, “historic”, composed primarily in Sanskrit, have been seemingly composed between the Third- and 10th-century. The Puranas are thought of a Smriti.
The Puranic literature wove with the Bhakti motion in India, a theistic devotional development that emerged in medieval Hinduism. It originated within the seventh-century Tamil south India, reaching its zenith between the 15th and 17th century.
The motion was impressed by many poet-saints, who championed a variety of philosophical positions starting from theistic dualism of Dvaita to absolute monism of Advaita Vedanta.
Scriptures of the Bhakti motion embrace the Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavata Purana and Padma Purana.
The Mahabharata is among the two main Sanskrit epics of historic India, the opposite being the Ramayana. It incorporates philosophical and devotional materials. Among the many principal works and tales within the Mahabharata are the Bhagavad Gita, the story of Damayanti, an abbreviated model of the Ramayana, and the Rishyasringa, typically thought of as works in their very own proper.
The origins of the Mahabharata epic most likely fall between the eighth and ninth centuries BCE. Based on the Mahabharata itself, the story is prolonged from a shorter model of 24,000 verses referred to as merely Bhārata. The Mahabharata is the longest recognized epic poem and has been described as “the longest poem ever written”.
source