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For microtones in Indian music, see Shruti (music). For other uses, see Shruti
(disambiguation).
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Shruti or Shruthi (Sanskrit: ??????, IAST: Sruti, IPA: [???t?]) in Sanskrit means
"that which is heard" and refers to the body of most authoritative, ancient
religious texts comprising the central canon of Hinduism.[1] It includes the four
Vedas including its four types of embedded texts�the Samhitas, the Brahmanas, the
Aranyakas and the early Upanishads.[2]

Srutis have been variously described as a revelation through anubhava (direct

experience),[3] or of primordial origins realized by ancient Rishis.[1] In Hindu
tradition, they have been referred to as apauru?eya (authorless).[4] The Sruti
texts themselves assert that they were skillfully created by Rishis (sages), after
inspired creativity, just as a carpenter builds a chariot.[5]

All six orthodox schools of Hinduism accept the authority of sruti,[6][note 1] but
many scholars in these schools denied that the srutis are divine.[8][9] Nastika
(heterodox) philosophies such as the Carvakas did not accept the authority of the
srutis and considered them to be flawed human works.[10][11]

Shruti (Sruti) differs from other sources of Hindu philosophy, particularly sm?ti
"which is remembered" or textual material. These works span much of the history of
Hinduism, beginning with the earliest known texts and ending in the early
historical period with the later Upanishads.[12] Of the srutis, the Upanishads
alone are widely known, and the central ideas of the Upanishadic srutis are at the
spiritual core of Hindus.[13][14]

Contents
1 Etymology
2 Distinction between sruti and sm?ti
3 Texts
4 Role in Hindu Law
5 Transmission
6 Quotation
7 See also
8 Notes
9 References
9.1 Cited sources
10 External links and further reading
Etymology
The Sanskrit word "??????" (IAST: Sruti, IPA: [???t??]) has multiple meanings
depending on context. It means "hearing, listening", a call to "listen to a
speech", any form of communication that is aggregate of sounds (news, report,
rumor, noise, hearsay).[15] The word is also found in ancient geometry texts of
India, where it means "the diagonal of a tetragon or hypotenuse of a triangle",[15]
and is a synonym of karna.[16] The word sruti is also found in ancient Indian music
literature, where it means "a particular division of the octave, a quarter tone or
interval" out of twenty-two enumerated major tones, minor tones, and semitones.[15]
In music, it refers the smallest measure of sound a human being can detect, and the
set of twenty-two sruti and forty four half Shruti, stretching from about 250 Hz to
500 Hz, is called the Shruti octave.[17]

In scholarly works on Hinduism, sruti refers to ancient Vedic texts from India.
Monier-Williams[15] traces the contextual history of this meaning of sruti as,
"which has been heard or communicated from the beginning, sacred knowledge that was
only heard and verbally transmitted from generation to generation, the Veda, from
earliest Rishis (sages) in Vedic tradition.[1] In scholarly literature, Sruti is
also spelled as Shruti.[18][19][20]

Distinction between sruti and sm?ti

Smriti literally "that which is remembered," refers to a body of Hindu texts
usually attributed to an author, traditionally written down but constantly revised,
in contrast to Srutis (the Vedic literature) considered authorless, that were
transmitted verbally across the generations and fixed.[2] Smriti is a derivative
secondary work and is considered less authoritative than Sruti in Hinduism.[21]
Sruti are fixed and its originals preserved better, while each Smriti text exists
in many versions, with many different readings.[2] Smritis were considered fluid
and freely rewritten by anyone in ancient and medieval Hindu tradition.[2][22]

Both srutis and sm?tis represent categories of texts of different traditions of

Hindu philosophy.[23] According to Gokul Narang, the Sruti are asserted to be of
divine origin in the mythologies of the Puranas.[24] In contrast, states Roy
Perrett, ancient and medieval Hindu philosophers have denied that sruti are divine,
authored by God.[8]

The Mima?sa tradition, famous in Hindu tradition for its Sruti exegetical
contributions, radically critiqued the notion and any relevance for concepts such
as "author", the "sacred text" or divine origins of Sruti; the Mimamsa school
claimed that the relevant question is the meaning of the Sruti, values appropriate
for human beings in it, and the commitment to it.[25]

Nastika philosophical schools such as the Carvakas of the first millennium BCE did
not accept the authority of the srutis and considered them to be human works
suffering from incoherent rhapsodies, inconsistencies and tautologies.[10][11]

Sm?tis are considered to be human thoughts in response to the srutis.[2]

Traditionally, all sm?tis are regarded to ultimately be rooted in or inspired by
srutis.[2]

Texts
The sruti literature include the four Vedas:[26][27]

Rigveda
Yajurveda
Samaveda
Atharvaveda
Each of these Vedas include the following texts, and these belong to the sruti
canon:[28]

Samhitas
Brahmanas
Aranyakas
Upanishads
The literature of the shakhas, or schools, further amplified the material
associated with each of the four core traditions.[29]

Of the above srutis, the Upanishads are most widely known, and the central ideas of
them are the spiritual foundation of Hinduism.[13] Patrick Olivelle writes,

Even though theoretically the whole of Vedic corpus is accepted as revealed truth
[sruti], in reality it is the Upanishads that have continued to influence the life
and thought of the various religious traditions that we have come to call Hindu.
Upanishads are the scriptures par excellence of Hinduism.

�?Patrick Olivelle[14]
Role in Hindu Law
Shrutis have been considered the authority in Hinduism.[note 1] Sm?tis, including
the Manusm?ti, the Naradasm?ti and the Parasarasm?ti, are considered less
authoritative than srutis.[30]

????????? ???????? ?????????? ? ????????? ?

????????? ??????????????????????? ? ?
Translation 1: The whole Veda is the (first) source of the sacred law, next the
tradition and the virtuous conduct of those who know the (Veda further), also the
customs of holy men, and (finally) self-satisfaction (Atmanastushti).[31]
Translation 2: The root of the religion is the entire Veda, and (then) the
tradition and customs of those who know (the Veda), and the conduct of virtuous
people, and what is satisfactory to oneself.[32]

???? ??????? ??????? ?????? ? ???????????? ?

????????????? ??????? ???????? ??????? ??????? ?
Translation 1: The Veda, the sacred tradition, the customs of virtuous men, and
one's own pleasure, they declare to be the fourfold means of defining the sacred
law.[31]
Translation 2: The Veda, tradition, the conduct of good people, and what is
pleasing to oneself � they say that is four fold mark of religion.[32]

Only three of the four types of texts in the Vedas have behavioral precepts:

For the Hindu all belief takes its source and its justification in the Vedas
[Sruti]. Consequently every rule of dharma must find its foundation in the Veda.
Strictly speaking, the Samhitas do not even include a single precept which could be
used directly as a rule of conduct. One can find there only references to usage
which falls within the scope of dharma. By contrast, the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas
and the Upanishads contain numerous precepts which propound rules governing
behavior.

�?Robert Lingat[33]
Bilimoria states the role of sruti in Hinduism has been inspired by "the belief in
a higher natural cosmic order (Rta succeeded later by the concept Dharma) that
regulates the universe and provides the basis for its growth, flourishing and
sustenance � be that of the gods, human beings, animals and eco-formations".[34]

Levinson states that the role of sruti and sm?ti in Hindu law is as a source of
guidance, and its tradition cultivates the principle that "the facts and
circumstances of any particular case determine what is good or bad".[35] The later
Hindu texts include fourfold sources of dharma, states Levinson, which include
atmanastushti (satisfaction of one's conscience), sadacara (local norms of virtuous
individuals), sm?ti and sruti.[35]

Transmission
The srutis, the oldest of which trace back to the second millennium BCE, had not
been committed to writing in ancient times. These were developed and transmitted
verbally, from one generation to the next, for nearly two millenniums. Almost all
printed editions available in the modern era are copied manuscripts that are hardly
older than 500 years.[36] Michael Witzel explains this oral tradition as follows:

The Vedic texts were orally composed and transmitted, without the use of script, in
an unbroken line of transmission from teacher to student that was formalized early
on. This ensured an impeccable textual transmission superior to the classical texts
of other cultures; it is, in fact, something like a tape-recording.... Not just the
actual words, but even the long-lost musical (tonal) accent (as in old Greek or in
Japanese) has been preserved up to the present.

�?Michael Witzel[37]
Ancient Indians developed techniques for listening, memorization and recitation of
srutis.[38] Many forms of recitation or pathas were designed to aid accuracy in
recitation and the transmission of the Vedas and other knowledge texts from one
generation to the next. All hymns in each Veda were recited in this way; for
example, all 1,028 hymns with 10,600 verses of the Rigveda was preserved in this
way; as were all other Vedas including the Principal Upanishads, as well as the
Vedangas. Each text was recited in a number of ways, to ensure that the different
methods of recitation acted as a cross check on the other. Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat
summarizes this as follows:[39]

Samhita-patha: continuous recitation of Sanskrit words bound by the phonetic rules

of euphonic combination;
Pada-patha: a recitation marked by a conscious pause after every word, and after
any special grammatical codes embedded inside the text; this method suppresses
euphonic combination and restores each word in its original intended form;
Krama-patha: a step-by-step recitation where euphonically-combined words are paired
successively and sequentially and then recited; for example, a hymn "word1 word2
word3 word4...", would be recited as "word1word2 word2word3 word3word4 ...."; this
method to verify accuracy is credited to Vedic sages Gargya and Sakalya in the
Hindu tradition and mentioned by the ancient Sanskrit grammarian Panini (dated to
pre-Buddhism period);
Krama-patha modified: the same step-by-step recitation as above, but without
euphonic-combinations (or free form of each word); this method to verify accuracy
is credited to Vedic sages Babhravya and Galava in the Hindu tradition, and is also
mentioned by the ancient Sanskrit grammarian Panini;
Jata-pa?ha, dhvaja-pa?ha and ghana-pa?ha are methods of recitation of a text and
its oral transmission that developed after 5th century BCE, that is after the start
of Buddhism and Jainism; these methods use more complicated rules of combination
and were less used.
These extraordinary retention techniques guaranteed an accurate Sruti, fixed across
the generations, not just in terms of unaltered word order but also in terms of
sound.[38][40] That these methods have been effective, is testified to by the
preservation of the most ancient Indian religious text, the ?gveda (ca. 1500 BCE).
[39]

This part of a Vedic student's education was called svadhyaya. The systematic
method of learning, memorization and practice, enabled these texts to be
transmitted from generation to generation with inordinate fidelity.[41]
Quotation
Swami sivananda in his book Self-Knowledge stated:

The Srutis are authoritative. They will guide you. They will inspire and elevate
you. You must have unshakable faith in their teachings. Then only you will be saved
from the clutches of Maya or death. Do not destroy them by means of your
sophisticated reasoning. The intellect is a frail and finite instrument. Do not
depend upon your intellect alone. If you do so, there is no hope for attaining
immortality.

- Swami sivananda

See also
Hindu law
Upanishads
Vedas
Notes
Elisa Freschi (2012): The Vedas are not deontic authorities in absolute sense and
may be disobeyed, but still recognized as an deontological epistemic authority by a
Hindu orthodox school;[7] (Note: This differentiation between epistemic and deontic
authority is true for all Indian religions)
References
James Lochtefeld (2002), "Shruti", The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Vol.
2: N�Z, Rosen Publishing. ISBN 9780823931798, page 645
Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (1988), Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism,
Manchester University Press, ISBN 0-7190-1867-6, pages 2-3
Michael Myers (2013). Brahman: A Comparative Theology. Routledge. pp. 104�112.
ISBN 978-1-136-83572-8.
P Bilimoria (1998), 'The Idea of Authorless Revelation', in Indian Philosophy of
Religion (Editor: Roy Perrett), ISBN 978-94-010-7609-8, Springer Netherlands, pages
3, 143-166
Hartmut Scharfe (2002), Handbook of Oriental Studies, BRILL Academic, ISBN 978-
9004125568, pages 13-14
Klaus Klostermaier (2007), Hinduism: A Beginner's Guide, ISBN 978-1851685387,
Chapter 2, page 26
Elisa Freschi (2012), Duty, Language and Exegesis in Prabhakara Mimamsa, BRILL,
ISBN 978-9004222601, page 62
Roy Perrett (1998), Hindu Ethics: A Philosophical Study, University of Hawaii
Press, ISBN 978-0824820855, pages 16-18
P Bilimoria (1990), Hindu Doubts About God - Towards a Mimamsa Deconstruction,
International Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 30, Issue 4, pages 481-499
Richard Hayes (2000), in Philosophy of Religion: Indian Philosophy (Editor:Roy
Perrett), Routledge, ISBN 978-0815336112, pages 187-212
Original Sanskrit version:Sarvasiddhanta Samgraha, pages 3-7;
English version: The Charvaka System with commentary by Madhava Acharya,
Translators: Cowell and Gough (1882), pages 5-9
Flood, Gavin. pp. 39.
Wendy Doniger (1990), Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism, 1st Edition,
University of Chicago Press, ISBN 978-0226618470, pages 2-3; Quote: "The Upanishads
supply the basis of later Hindu philosophy; they alone of the Vedic corpus are
widely known and quoted by most well-educated Hindus, and their central ideas have
also become a part of the spiritual arsenal of rank-and-file Hindus."
Patrick Olivelle (2014), The Early Upanisads, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-
0195352429, page 3; Quote: "Even though theoretically the whole of vedic corpus is
accepted as revealed truth [sruti], in reality it is the Upanishads that have
continued to influence the life and thought of the various religious traditions
that we have come to call Hindu.
zruti Monier-Williams' Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Cologne Digital Sanskrit
Lexicon, Germany
 TA Amma (1999), Geometry in Ancient and Medieval India, ISBN 978-8120813441, page
261
Milo� Zatkalik, Milena Medic and Denis Collins (2013), Histories and Narratives of
Music Analysis, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, ISBN 978-1443850285, page 509
Shruti, Encyclop�dia Britannica (2015)
Kim Knott (2016). Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p.
12. ISBN 978-0-19-874554-9. Quote: There are different views among Hindus about
which scriptures are shruti and which fall into the other important category of
sacred literature, smriti, that which is remembered or handed down.
Wendy Doniger (1988). Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism. Manchester
University Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-7190-1867-1.
James Lochtefeld (2002), "Smrti", The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Vol.
2: N�Z, Rosen Publishing, ISBN 978-0823931798, page 656-657
Sheldon Pollock (2011), Boundaries, Dynamics and Construction of Traditions in
South Asia (Editor: Federico Squarcini), Anthem, ISBN 978-0857284303, pages 41-58
Coburn, Thomas B. 1984. pp. 448
Gokul Chand Narang (1903). Message of the Vedas. ????? ???????. pp. 39�40. ISBN
978-5-87256-097-5.
Francis X. Clooney (1987), Why the Veda Has No Author: Language as Ritual in Early
Mima?sa and Post-Modern Theology, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol.
55, No. 4, page 660
"Shruti: The Four Vedas".
Gavin Flood (1996), An Introduction to Hinduism, Cambridge University Press, ISBN
978-0521438780, pages 33-40
A Bhattacharya (2006), Hinduism: Introduction to Scriptures and Theology, ISBN
978-0595384556, pages 8-14
Flood, Gavin. 1997. pp. 39
James Lochtefeld (2002), "Smrti", The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Vol.
2: N�Z, Rosen Publishing. ISBN 9780823931798, pages 656 and 461
The Laws of Manu 2.6 with footnotes George B�hler (Translator), The Sacred Books
of the East, Vol. 25, Oxford University Press
Brian Smith and Wendy Doniger (1992), The Laws of Manu, Penguin, ISBN 978-
0140445404, pages 17-18
Robert Lingat (1973), The Classical Law of India, University of California Press,
ISBN 978-0520018983, pages 7-8
Bilimoria, Purushottama (2011), The idea of Hindu law, Journal of Oriental Society
of Australia, Vol. 43, pages 103-130
Devid Levinson (2002), Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment, Volume 1, SAGE
Publications, ISBN 978-0761922582, page 829
Quotation of "... almost all printed editions depend on the late manuscripts that
are hardly older than 500 years, not on the still extant and superior oral
tradition" - M Witzel, "Vedas and Upani?ads", in: Flood, Gavin, ed. (2003), The
Blackwell Companion to Hinduism, Blackwell Publishing Ltd., ISBN 1-4051-3251-5,
pages 68-71
M Witzel, "Vedas and Upani?ads", in: Flood, Gavin, ed. (2003), The Blackwell
Companion to Hinduism, Blackwell Publishing Ltd., ISBN 1-4051-3251-5, pages 68-71
Hartmut Scharfe (2002). Handbook of Oriental Studies. BRILL Academic. pp. 24�29,
226�232. ISBN 90-04-12556-6.
Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat (2006). Karine Chemla (ed.). History of Science, History
of Text. Springer. pp. 138�140. ISBN 978-1-4020-2321-7.
Wilke, Annette and Moebus, Oliver. Sound and Communication: An Aesthetic Cultural
History of Sanskrit Hinduism (Religion and Society). De Gruyter (February 1, 2007).
P. 495. ISBN 3110181592.
Frits Staal (1996). Ritual and Mantras: Rules Without Meaning. Motilal Banarsidas.
pp. 220�221. ISBN 978-81-208-1412-7.
Cited sources
Coburn, Thomas, B. Scripture" in India: Towards a Typology of the Word in Hindu
Life Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Sep., 1984),
Clooney, Francis X. Why the Veda Has No Author: Language as Ritual in Early Mima?sa
and Post-Modern TheologyJournal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 55, No. 4
(Winter, 1987).
Jho, Chakradhar. 1987. History and Sources of Law in Ancient India Ashish
Publishing House.
Flood, Gavin. 1997. An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge University Press
Gupta, Ravi M. 2007. Caitanya Vaisnava Vedanta of Jiva Gosvami.
External links and further reading
Shruti and other texts (Incomplete), Wikisource
Upanishads (in Sanskrit, complete list of 108) Wikisource
Shruti in Hinduism, University of Pittsburgh
Hindu Scriptures, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World, Georgetown University
Introduction to the Role of Sruti in Hindu Theology, Francis X. Clooney (2014),
Journal of Hindu Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1, pages 1�5
Rambachan, Anantanand (1996). "Scripture as a Source of Knowledge in Hinduism".
Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies. 9. doi:10.7825/2164-6279.1127.
Bilimoria, Purusottama (1984). "The Renaissance Reaction to Sruti". Annals of the
Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. 65 (1/4): 43�58. JSTOR 41693106.
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