Upanishads

In fact, Vedanta hopes for and welcomes further radical advances in modern science by which its own spiritual vision of the One in the many may be corroborated by positive scientific knowledge, so that the spirituality of science and the spirituality of religion may flow as a united stream to fertilise all aspects of human life.

The Two Ideals of Truth

Throwing light on the unique characteristic of the Sanatana Dharma as derived from the Upanishads, Swami Vivekananda says in his lecture on 'The Sages of India'

'Two ideals of truth are in our scriptures; the one is what we call the eternal, and the other is not so authoritative, yet binding under particular circumstances, times, and places. The eternal relations between souls and God are embodied in what we call the Srutis, the vedas. The next set of truths is what we call the Smrtis, as embodied in the words of Manu, Yajnavalkya, and other writers, and also in the Puranas, down to the Tantras ..

Another peculiarity is that these Srutis have many sages as the recorders of the truths in them, mostly men, even some women. Very little is known of their personalities, the dates of their birth, and so forth, but their best thoughts, their best discoveries, I should say, are preserved there, embodied in the sacred literature of our country, the Vedas. In the Smrtis, on the other hand, personalities are more in evidence. Startling, gigantic, impressive, world-moving persons stand before us, as it were, for the first time, sometimes of more magnitude even than their teachings.

'This is a peculiarity which we have to understand--that our religion preaches an Impersonal-Personal God. It preaches any amount of impersonal laws plus any amount of personality; but the very fountainhead of our religion is in the Srutis, the Vedas, which are perfectly impersonal; the persons all come in the Smrtis and Puranas--the great avataras, incarnations of God, prophets, and so forth. And this ought also to be observed that except our religion, every other religion in the world depends upon the life or lives of some personal founder or founders.

Sruti versus Smrti

The Upanishads are an impressive record of this 'reading of the book within'. The scriptures of every religion are such records. But all of them, except the Upanishads, contain also a good bit of extraneous matter, not only myths and legends and cosmological theories, which the Upanishads also contain, but also a large number of rules and regulations, with their do's and don'ts, to guide the individual and collective conduct and behaviour of their respective followers. The significance of these latter being merely local and temporary, they are not capable of universal application and are not relevant for all time; the fundamental messages of all religions, however, derive from their central core of essential spiritual truths which are universal and for all time.

The Upanishads are the only sacred books which addressed themselves exclusively to the discovery of these essential spiritual truths and to leading man, irrespective if creed and race, to their realisation in his own life. lndian tradition refers to the Upanishads, therefore, as Sruti as contrasted with another class of religious literature known as Smrti, including the Dharma Sastra, to which it wisely left the work of forging social rules and regulations in the past, as it would leave it to the political constitutions and social consciences today.

The Unique Sanatana Dharma

The philosophy and religion that India developed Out of the Sruti bears, therefore, a significant title, namely, sanatana dharma, 'Eternal Religion'. It derives its authority from its truth-character and not from any person, be he saint or even an incarnation; and the truth-character of a teaching demands that it be verifiable by all, irrespective of dogma, creed, and race, and at all times.

It has, however, a high place for saints and incarnations, as exemplars and teachers of the eternal truths of religion, and for the promulgators of social laws and regulations, be they holy or gifted individuals, as in the past, or institutions like the national legislatures or international organisations, as in the present.

Throwing light on this unique characteristic of the Sanatana Dharma as derived from the Upanishads,, Swami Vivekananda says in his lecture on 'The Sages of India'

By Sruti is generally meant the Vedas; specifically, it means the Upanishads, they being the Vedanta, the anta, literally the end or concluding portion, but in a deeper sense, the very gist or essence, of the Vedas. The Vedas or Srutis expound sanatana dharma) which means eternal religion. Indian spiritual tradition holds the Vedas as anadi- beginningless.