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Chapter1: The Basics-7

Q:  Other than the Vedas and the posterior Upanishads, what are the other books that authentically elucidate the Vedas? Can they be considered on par with the Vedas as authoritative?

 A:  The smrithis, the ithihasas, namely the Ramayana and the Mahabaharatha, the eighteen Puranas like the Vishnu and Bhagavatha purana have been accepted as vedic texts by religious heads like Sankara, Ramanuja and Madvacharya. However, these books are not 'apaurusheya' like the Vedas.

They are not self creative, but the works of great rishis. Any work by a human being suffers certain handicaps like:
1. natural intellectual limitations,
2. confusion of factual identities,
3. obsession to certain ideologies,
4. forget-fulness etc and they are capable of ushering in factual errors into their work.

Therefore, the above mentioned works cannot enjoy the authority of the Vedas. Nevertheless, in matters, which do not clash with the intentions of the Vedas, they are considered as elucidative vedic texts.


The Q&A of the day is an excerpt from "Two-fold Vedic Vision", a Sri Vaishnavite handbook based on Sri Sudarsanar’s 1008 Catechisms in Tamil written by Sri. Kidambi Sridharan. The collection contains invaluable information on the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Ithihasas, the lives of Alwars, Acharyas from Sriman Nathamunigal to Sri Manavala Mamuni, the 108 Divya Desams and answers to various other related questions.  This book is available for purchase on Amazon.

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