Important Hindu Spiritual Texts

It’s not just the bhagavad gIta. 🙂

Primary source of knowledge amongst all living the hindu way of life:

the vEdas
Author – apaurusheya (authorless). Not even the God whom it praises authored it. Authorlessness is considered a crucial aspect of unbiased information.

Brahmasutras – authored by bhagavaan vEdavyaasa. These are short formulae to understand the vEdas correctly – without ambiguity. Ex: “om athaatho brahma jignyaasaa om” is a brahma sutra

It turned out that as time passed even the brahma sootras proved very cryptic. The vEdic philosophers wrote their baashyas on these sootras (sankara, ramaanuja and madhva). So – if you want to establish a vEdic philosophy by yourself, you’d write your own interpretation of the B. Sootras. Some 22 such Achaaryaas in total who have done this so far.

It’s not just the vEdas which are used as sources of information to establish a philosophy – the vaajnmaya (environment) is used. That includes like the mahaabhaarata, raamayaNa, the 18 purANas including the bhaagavatha purANa (most famous purANa), the paancharaatra and so on.

A clarification here is that the upanishads, which are widely quoted, are part of the vEdas… so I have not listed them separately. Again – authorless.

MahAbhArata raamaayaNa puraaNas paancharaatra and brahmasootras – all of them authored by vEdavyaasa Himself. H in capital coz vEdavyaasa is not some random muni, but an avatar by Himself like raama or krshNa avatars

What is available for raamayaNa is the vaalmeeki raamayaNa, but the original one is authored by vEdavyaasa Himself.

Thus the vEdas + upanishads + itihaasas (raamayaNa and mahaabharata) + the 18 major purANas (bhaagavatha being one of them) + paancharaatra (not available today) are all considered important sources of knowledge in the hindu ecosystem.

The bhagavad gIta and vishNusahasranaama are part of mahaabhaarata – and carry dense philosophical value.