Divine Revelarion of the Vedas
The Vedas are scriptures known as Shruti, which were revealed to the seers.
One perception is that the revelation took place during periods of intense meditation. The mythological version is that Brahma the Creator revealed them to the seers.
It is commonly accepted that the Vedas were revealed to the ancient seers. It is also accepted that since God is the prime cause of the universe, the Vedas were a ‘divine revelation’. In fact the Vedas belong to that category of Hindu scriptures known as Shruti, literally meaning ‘that which is heard’. When the seers emptied their minds of all trivialities they could hear the sounds of the universe. The other category in this manner of classification is Smriti, literally meaning ‘that which is remembered’. The Shruti texts were revealed whereas the Smriti texts were realized as a consequence of deduction from the Shruti texts. There are differences of opinion in the classification between Shruti and Smriti. However the Vedas are universally accepted as belonging to the revealed category. The perception of the process of how the Vedas were revealed varies with the nature of inquiry.
The early Vedic society was pagan and pantheistic and the secrets of the Vedas were probably revealed through meditation and introspection on nature’s relationship with humanity. The experience of communion with the divine happened in a flash during moments of intense meditation aided by sudden inspiration. It was during such moments that the questions regarding the nature of universe, purpose of life and God were answered. These answers were then composed in the form of hymns that became the essential part of the Vedas. This process is by no means far fetched. The apocryphal tale of how Newton discovered gravity by an apple falling on his head is an illustration of the same process.
This is not the kind of divine revelation we are accustomed to. For us divine revelation is Moses receiving the Ten Commandments from God or Muhammad receiving the Holy Koran from Allah. As Hinduism moved from polytheism to monotheism and as theology became the more dominant aspect of philosophy the need for an express divine revelation was felt necessary to strengthen the theological basis of religion. In mythology, Brahma the Creator became the custodian of the Vedas. He revealed them to the first seers who in turn disseminated them to the next generation.
In the article Hinduism: A Holistic Way of Life we saw that Hinduism has a multidisciplinary perspective. The divine revelation of the Vedas is one more example.
