A devotee’s question: Someone has asked: Where do our scriptures come from? Who writes our scriptures? Are there new scriptures being written?
Swami Nikhilanand Ji’s answer: The Hindu scriptures are eternal. We can understand this first of all this way.
There are three types of scriptures in the world. Vinirgat granth (eternally existing scripture), smṛit granth (remembered scripture), and kṛit granth (scripture written by a non-God-realized person). Krit granth means a religious book that was written by a person who hasn’t attained God, but is still writing some philosophy out of their own mind, out of their own understanding, but their mind is not Divine. Their mind is mayic (material). They have not experienced God, and they have not received God’s Divine knowledge. So, what that type of person writes is called a krit granth. They make it out of their own mind and try their best to speculate or explain something they have never fully experienced themselves. Therefore, these types of krit granth, which are available in abundance nowadays, are amānya (not acceptable). They are not acceptable as a form of proof to understanding about spiritual things.
You see, these scriptures are meant to give us the understanding of things we haven’t been able to experience ourselves. That is why we need the scriptures. If we had experienced God already, we wouldn’t have any need for the scriptures. The scriptures are there to take us to God. So, what would the use be of a scripture that was written by someone who hasn’t even attained God yet themselves? They are in the same boat as us; ‘The blind leading the blind.’ They haven’t attained God, yet we want to know about God, and we are learning from someone who hasn’t themselves attained God. They have studied religious scriptures. They’ve studied the writings of others, probably Divine Saints, and they have also studied the writing of many unqualified writers as well. And out of that, that person writes something in this world and adds to the confusion. So, these types of krit granth are to be avoided.
Then we have smṛit granth and vinirgat granth. Vinirgat granth means the Ved, and all other Divine scriptures come in the category of smrit granth. Why is Ved distinguished from all the other scriptures? The reason is that although all Divine scriptures are eternal, the way that Ved is produced is slightly different. The Ved has a Divine personal form. All the ṛicha’s (Vedic verses) of the Ved, all the verses of the Ved, exist in a Divine personal form in the Divine world. During sṛiṣhṭi (creation), those ṛichas are made available here in this world. During pralay (dissolution), the Ved dissolves into God.
Just like this world didn’t begin from nothing; it began from something. But that something was in an absolute dormant state, absolutely subtle maya; the original material energy is called maya (God’s material power). That original energy was activated by God. The Ved itself tells us that God looked toward maya, and that glance activated the inert, mayic energy. The mindless, lifeless mayic energy was activated with the will of God. Thus, maya unfolded and evolved into, first through many subtle stages but eventually, into the form of this physical universe. This matter that we see around us is the product of that original mayic energy. We call this sṛiṣhṭi; this is the the manifested form of maya. But maya again will one day be dissolved. We call that pralay.
At that time, the mayic energy dissolves in its absolutely subtle form back into God. This cycle never began. Maya itself is eternal. When maya is dissolved, it is not destroyed. It simply merges back into Krishna in a dormant form, and again Krishna will activate maya. That is sṛiṣhṭi. So you see, its a cycle - sṛiṣhṭi, pralay, sṛiṣhṭi, pralay - over and over and over again. It will never end. There will never be a final dissolution of the universe. It keeps being reproduced again, remanifested, and there was never a first creation of the universe, because maya is eternal.
अजामेकां लोहितशुक्लकृष्णां बह्वीः प्रजाः सृजमानां सरूपाः।
अजो ह्येको जुषमाणोऽनुशेते जहात्येनां भुक्तभोगामजोऽन्यः॥Ajāmekāṁ lohitaśhuklakṛiṣhṇāṁ bahvīḥ prajāḥ sṛijamānāṁ sarūpāḥ |
Ajo hyeko juṣhamāṇo’nuśhete jahātyenāṁ bhuktabhogāmajo’nyaḥ ||- Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 4.5
Śvetāśvatara Upanishad, a part of our Ved says, “Maya is ajā - unborn; maya never began.”
We know from the Gita,
नासतो विद्यते भावो नाभावो विद्यते सत: |
Nā sato vidyate bhāvo nābhāvo vidyate sataḥ.- Gita 2.1.6
“Energy cannot be created or destroyed.”
Scientists have discovered this fact as well. But it was stated in the Gita 5,000 years ago. If something is non-existent it cannot be made to exist. And if there is an existing entity,an existing tattva, that tattva cannot be made to cease to exist. And according to the Ved, everything that exists is actually only three tattvas: God, souls, and maya. That’s it. There’s nothing that exists other than these three. And these three have existed for eternity. Of course, God has existed since eternity. That everybody is ready to accept. If God hadn’t existed since eternity, it means something else existed before God, or if someone created God, then God would not be God. The one who created God would be God. It means God predates everything. God has been here before everything. God has existed since eternity.
However, you might be surprised to know that we have also existed since eternity. Souls are also eternal. In other words, although we come from God, because with God does sṛiṣhṭi, He activates maya, and the universe is manifested, then He also sends us out to take birth in the physical world.
यतो वा इमानि भूतानि जायन्ते येन जातानि जीवन्ति।
यत् प्रयन्त्यभिसंविशन्ति। तद्विजिज्ञासस्व। ॥Yato vā imāni bhūtāni jāyante.
Yat prayantyabhisanvishanti. Tadvijigyāsasva.- Taittiriya Upanishad 3.1.1
Taittirīya Upanishad says, ”God ‘produced’ the souls,” but that doesn’t mean He created them because souls are also ajā, unborn, never made, never created, eternal.
Then where did they come from? They were already there within God. Just like maya had merged into God and then He activated it, so it manifested physically again. All the souls during pralay merge into Shree Krishna and they stay there in a dormant state until the next srishti. When did this begin? It never began. The cycle of srishti and pralay never began. There was never a first one. If you go back in time, you’ll go back to before this current srishti, there was a pralay. Before that, what was there? The previous srishti. Before that, pralay. Before that, the srishti before that. Before that, pralay. Keep going back, there’s no end. You can keep doing that forever. Going back in time, you’ll never reach the beginning because there was no beginning. It’s an eternal cycle of srishti and pralay.
This means that God has been here forever, maya has been here forever. God didn’t create maya. It’s His eternal power. He activates it and deactivates it and activates it and deactivates it. That’s all. He doesn’t ‘create’ maya and souls have also existed forever. He didn’t ‘create’ us but He ‘produces’ us because we were inside of Him and then He sends us forth to take birth during srishti. Therefore, we say, we are all God’s children, but in this case, the children are the same age as the parent. God is not older than us. We have existed forever and so has He. God is eternal and we are eternal.
But what does all of this have to do with the Ved? Well, the Ved is eternal. Ved has existed for as long as God and as long as humans. Ved is also a Divine power of God, so God looked towards maya and with His will maya activated. Then He smiled and all of the souls were sent forth to take birth. In other words, with His gracious will, the souls went and took birth. He’s giving them a chance to be born in this world so that they can know about Him. But how would they know about Him? So, He produced the Vedas before He even activated maya. He was resting during pralay because during srishti we keep Him very busy.
You have one kid or two kids or three kids, think how busy they keep you keeping track of them.
“They’re not getting into trouble, are they?”
“It’s awfully quiet in that other room.”
“What’s going on over there?”
Just with a few kids, you’re running around all day long. God has infinite souls who are all His kids and He is keeping track of our each and every thought, every moment of every day, and upholding the existence of this whole universe. So, He is extremely busy. Of course, He’s also blissful. He doesn’t get stressed out by this.
But during pralay, He takes a break. So, this Ved mantra was saying when Shree Krishna was sleeping during pralay, He exhaled and His breath is the Ved. So, Ved was produced before He even did srishti. This is why Ved is called paurushaya: a product of God, produced by God. But Ved is also called apaurushaya: not made by God because He didn’t ‘make’ Ved. Just like the souls were inside of Him and He sends them forth, maya was inside of Him and He activates it. Ved merged into Shree Krishna during pralay and then He produces Ved again. But it’s not like Krishna exhaled and books came flying out of His mouth. Ved does not mean books.
You see, there are four levels of subtlety of vocalization, what we call varni. What you’re hearing from me right now is called vaikhari varni. Varni means a sound or a vocalization, something said, something communicated. This is vaikhari varni. I’m speaking out loud. There are three more subtle forms of communication, which are not heard by the ears. Madhyama varni is more subtle and pashyanti varni is even more subtle. These communications are so subtle, they can’t be heard. They don’t produce sound waves. They’re received in a Divine mind. A Divine mind can receive or understand varni that is so subtle it can just be received in the mind. That is called madhyama varni or even more subtle, pashyanti varni. And the most subtle varni of all is parā varni. This is the subtlest form. And it’s in this form that Ved stays within God.
And it’s in that form that He produces Vedas. And then using pashyanti varni and madhyamā varni, He transfers the knowledge of Ved into Brahma’s mind. Brahma is called the creator, but he’s not the creator of the whole universe. He completes the creation of one planetary system. We call it brahmand (meaning) our Earth, the solar system, swarg, narak. So we have one Brahma managing our little planetary system - there are millions. There are actually infinite other Brahmas because there are infinite other such planetary systems in the endless universe.
So in each planetary system, Krishna has to give Brahma the knowledge of Ved. And He does it like a wireless transfer, like a download. He just downloads it into his brain, but in a Divine way through this subtle varni. So Brahma receives that, and then when you see the creation of the earth planet is complete, and now souls are going to start residing on Earth. So first the plants and insects and animals begin residing on Earth. But when Brahma is ready to have human beings reside on Earth, the first humans are actually eternal Divine Saints. This is the next question that was asked. Where did the first humans come from? The first humans were descended Saints, Divine Saints, just like now, you all know Krishna can take avatar here on Earth, and He can send His Saints from the Divine world here on Earth.
So in the very beginning He sent Saints on Earth - so simple. Those Saints came and they produced the human population, the children of those Saints were also Saints, and their children were also Saints. So there was a population of Saints, but eventually ordinary souls were sent to take birth in the families of those Saints. That is how we’re all descended from Saints here on Earth. And originally, we’re all descended from Brahma. He is our great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather.
So those first Saints of the earth planet also received the Vedas from Brahma. Krishna gave Ved to Brahma, Brahma gave Ved to those first Saints. We call them rishis, and those Saints passed on the knowledge of the Ved to successive generations of Saints verbally. That’s why Ved is called shruti which means something you hear and remember. But eventually, they wrote it down in a book. So you see Ved is not just ‘a book’. In the end, it gets written as a book and then books get lost.
कालेन नष्टा प्रलये वाणीयं वेदसंज्ञिता ।
मयाऽदौ ब्रह्मणे प्रोक्ता धर्मो यस्यां मदात्मकः ॥Kālena naṣṭā pralaye vāṇīyaṃ vedasaṃgyitā |
Mayā’dau brahmaṇe proktā dharmo yasyāṃ madātmakaḥ ||- Bhagwatam 11.14.13
Shree Krishna says in the Bhagwatam that ‘over time books get lost’. And certainly during pralay all the books are finished. No physical form survives pralay. So Shree Krishna says,
“Ā’dau (आऽदौ ब्रह्मणे प्रोक्ता) in the beginning, brahmaṇe proktā (ब्रह्मणे प्रोक्ता).I tell Ved to Brahma,” but He doesn’t recite it. He gives it in that subtle form, as I explained.
So Ved is a Divine power of Shree Krishna that is produced in its original form here on Earth through Brahma and the rishis. And this production or reproduction of Ved keeps happening over and over on our Earth because we have pralay every now and then according to our exact cycles of time. There are different pralaya that happen on our Earth and then everything is regenerated, rejuvenated, and life rebegins on Earth. Human civilization restarts on Earth and each time Ved has to be available because what will we do without Ved? We souls have been looking for answers since eternity. Who am I? Where did I come from? What is the purpose of my life? Is there a God? How do I reach God? How would we know these answers on our own? We wouldn’t. So the answers are in Ved and that Ved is made available. As I mentioned, Ved is produced before the ordinary souls are even born here on Earth. Just like milk is available in the breast of the mother before the child is even born, so that when the child is born the nourishment is immediately available.
Similarly for us, this Divine knowledge which we require to understand the purpose of our life is available before ordinary souls even come here on Earth. And it’s reproduced again and again and even an avatar of God, Ved Vyas, he comes at the end of every Dwapar yug and again rewrites all the Vedas. So in this way, the Ved is maintained here on the earth planet for the benefit of the souls. And the same Ved is given to the other brahmans, in the other brahmands. They don’t need different scriptures over there. The souls living over there are the same as us. They have the same questions and the same problems and they need the same knowledge. So Ved is universal. The dharm that is told in Ved, which we call sanatan dharm. Of course, it’s sanatan. It’s eternal, right? The knowledge is eternal. The guidelines are eternal. Souls are eternal. Our need for knowledge is eternal. So the dharm that guides us to God is also eternal. Thus it’s called sanatan dharm. And it is universal. It is found everywhere in the universe for all the souls, because souls are souls. We associate a country or a gender or an ethnicity or a religion with our current physical body.
We say, “I’m American.”
“I’m Canadian.
“I’m Indian.”
“I’m Jewish.”
“I’m Hindu.”
We affix these labels based on what body we were born into in this life. But actually, Ved is for all the souls. Sanatan dharm is for all the souls. Sanatan dharm never began and it will never end. Other philosophies and traditions begin and finish, but sanatan dharm will be here forever and has been here forever and exists all over the universe because it’s the universal path to God for all the souls. This Ved, every time it’s reproduced, is exactly the same. Not one syllable even changes. This is why it is called vinirgat granth. Not made by anybody. It’s eternally existing in its original form.
Other scriptures which are also Divine like the Puran, Bhagwatam, Gita, Mahabharat, Ramayan, these other scriptures, they are Divine. They are called smrit granth because even though they’re eternal, each time they’re reproduced, they’re reproduced in a slightly different form. When Ved Vyas Ji wrote the Puran, it’s the same Puran from the last srishti. But he writes it out of his mind. Ved Vyas Ji is a Divine personality. He’s a descension of God. But when he writes it, he knows,
“Okay, just like the last time I wrote Puran, I have to tell all these leelas of all these descensions of God. I have to explain exactly all this type of philosophy, same as I did last time.”
But exactly what words he uses to do that will change from edition to edition. It’s like a new edition each time. So just like if I explain this same topic to you tomorrow, I could hit all the same points and explain all the same things, but I won’t use the exact same words. There will be some variation. So there’s some variation each time the Gita is produced. There’s some variation each time the Puran or the Ramayan are produced, the Darshan Shastras. There aren’t mistakes, just variation in word order, how things are being described. There’s some variation. So that is why these Divine eternal scriptures are called smrit granth. Krishna sits in the heart of those Saints who write those scriptures, and He makes them remember that scripture, and then they write it in their own words.
But Ved is not in anybody’s words. Ved is the exact same thing at all times. So Ved is vinirgat granth. Other eternal scriptures of sanatan dharm are called smrit granth. And together they form this system of knowledge we call sanatan dharm. The other scriptures, the smrit granth are explanatory for Ved. They help us understand the true meaning of Ved. Ved on its own is not understandable by anybody, not even Brahma. Although no material person could understand any Divine scripture, but with this system of knowledge and the help of Divine Saints guiding us, we can understand the knowledge of Ved.
We can understand how to live our life and how to attain God. Saints also write other Divine scriptures, but they are not necessarily called scriptures, or they’re not necessarily eternal. (like) the Gita, Puran, etc. These are eternal scriptures like the Mahabharat, Ramayan. But let’s say a Saint writes a book for his disciples, for this particular group of people at this particular time, for them to understand what knowledge is relevant to them. That’s not necessarily going to be available in the next srishti.
So there are many other Divine books written by Saints who have attained God that they’re not necessarily in that same category of scripture that’s reproduced again and again on every earth planet and in every srishti. So these are the different types of Divine books we have. Plus we also have krit granth, which we want to avoid, those that are produced by people with a material mind who haven’t attained God.
But if we pray to Shree Krishna, He will send us a true Saint who can actually explain the real knowledge of Ved and these other scriptures of sanatan dharm to us. We shouldn’t go on our own and try to read them and understand them. That’s a recipe for disaster. We’ll gain what we think is knowledge and we’ll have pride in our knowledge, but we won’t have actually understood the true philosophy. And our pride of knowing will take us further from God and make us less likely to be able to accept the correct explanation when we hear it. So for us, the correct process is to pray to Shree Krishna to send us a true Saint. And when we meet that Saint, that Saint will explain the philosophy to us, giving us the understanding of these scriptures in a way that is practical for us, giving us the essence of these scriptures.
