Vedas

The original revealed Hindu scriptures — shruti — the corpus whose concluding teachings are the Upanishads.

Overview

The Vedas are the foundational Hindu scriptures. They are shruti — revealed, “heard” — as distinct from smriti (remembered). The Upanishads form their final and highest section; their teachings are what is called vedanta, literally “the end of the Vedas.”

Swami observes that although Hindus traditionally regard the Vedas as their core texts, few Hindus today study them directly. Most study the Gita — which is called the essence of the Vedas.

Related entities and concepts

• Contain the upanishads as their highest teaching
• Classification: shruti
• The teachings of their concluding portion: vedanta

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 1 [23:11]: Vedas are the core texts for Hindus, though most study the Gita.
• Ep. 1 [23:45]: The Gita contains the essential teachings of the Upanishads, and thus of the Vedas.