Take a Quiz on Hindu Scriptures

Agamas

The Agamas (Devanagari: आगम, IAST: āgama) are a collection of scriptures of several Hindudevotional schools.^[1][2]  The three main branches of Agama texts are those of Shaivism (Shiva), Vaishnavism (Vishnu), Shaktism (Devi).^[1]

The Agama literature is voluminous, and includes 28 Shaiva Agamas, 77 Shakta Agamas (also called Tantras), and 108 Vaishnava Agamas (also called Pancharatra Samhitas), and numerous Upa-Agamas.^[9]

Each tradition in Hinduism has a long list of Hindu texts, with subgenre based on syncretization of ideas from Samkhya, Nyaya, Yoga, Vedanta and other schools of Hindu philosophy.^[3][4][5] Of these some called Sruti are broadly considered as core scriptures of Hinduism.

Sutras

Sutras are a compilation of short aphoristic statements^[3][4] like a theorem distilled into few words or syllables, around which teachings of ritual, philosophy, grammar, or any field of knowledge can be woven.^[2][3] The oldest sutras of Hinduism are found in the Brahmana and Aranyaka layers of the Vedas.^[5][6]

There are hundreds of major compilations of similar Sutras.

For example,  Brahma Sutras contain 555 sutras in four chapters that summarize the philosophical and spiritual ideas in the Upanishads.^[35]  Yoga Sutras – contains 196 sutras on Yoga including the eight limbs and meditation.

Atharavaveda

The text, states Kenneth Zysk, is one of oldest surviving record of the evolutionary practices in religious medicine and reveals the “earliest forms of folk healing of Indo-European antiquity”.^[110] Many books of the Atharvaveda Samhita are dedicated to rituals without magic, such as to philosophical speculations and to theosophy.^[107]

The text also includes hymns dealing with the two major rituals of passage – marriage and cremation. The Atharva Veda also dedicates significant portion of the text asking the meaning of a ritual.^[111]

The term “tantrism” is a 19th-century European invention that is not present in any Asian language;^[17] It was introduced by 19th-century Indologists, with limited knowledge of India and in whose view Tantrism was a particular, unusual and minority practice in contrast to Indian traditions they believed to be mainstream.^[16] Robert Brown similarly notes that the term “tantrism” is a construct of Western scholarship, not a concept of the religious system itself.^[51]

The term tantra, in the Indian traditions, also means any systematic broadly applicable “text, theory, system, method, instrument, technique or practice”.^[1][2]  The Hindu texts that describe these topics are called Tantras, Āgamas or Samhitās.^[9][10]

The Tantra texts and tantric practices involve a wide range of topics, mostly focused on spiritual topics, and not of sexual nature. However, states Gavin Flood, Tantrism is more known in the West as being notorious for its antinomian elements, stereotypically portrayed as a practice that is esoteric eroticism and ritualized sex in the name of religion, one imbued with alcohol and offering of meat to fierce deities.^[103][104]

Itihaasa

Itihasa, meaning history in Sanskrit, consists of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana (sometimes the Puranas too, are included). The Mahabharata includes the story of the Kurukshetra War and also preserves the traditions of the Lunar dynasty in the form of embedded tales. The Puranasnarrate the universal history as perceived by the Hindus – cosmogony, myth, legend and history. The Ramayana contains the story of Rama and incidentally relates the legends of the Solar dynasty. The classical Indian poets usually derive the story of their poetry and drama from the Itihasas.

The Veda, for orthodox Indian theologians, are considered revelations seen by ancient sages after intense meditation, and texts that have been more carefully preserved since ancient times.^[9][10] In the Hindu Epic the Mahabharata, the creation of Vedas is credited to Brahma.^[11]

Puranas

Puranas are various religious texts, notably consisting of narratives of the history of the universe from creation to destruction, genealogies of kings, heroes, sages, and demigods, and descriptions of Hindu cosmology, philosophy, and geography.^[2]

The Vedas are among the oldest sacred texts^[33][34] The  Vedic period, spans from 2,500BC to about 1,500BC or the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age.^[36] The Vedas, Vedic rituals and its ancillary sciences called the Vedangas, were part of the curriculum at ancient universities such as at Taxila, Nalanda and Vikramashila.^{[44][45][46][47]} 

Vedas are the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism.^[2]

Smriti (Sanskrit: स्मृति, IAST: Smṛti), literally “that which is remembered” are a body of Hindu texts usually attributed to an author, traditionally written down but constantly revised.

The ancient scriptures of Hinduism are in Sanskrit.

Rigveda

The Rigveda is the oldest work, which is probably from the period of 1900 to 1100 BC. It is a collection of 1,028 Vedic Sanskrit hymns and 10,600 verses in all, organized into ten books (Sanskrit: mandalas).^[80] The hymns are dedicated to Rigvedic deities.^[81]

The nature of hymns in rigveda shift from praise of deities in early books to Nasadiya Sukta with questions such as, “what is the origin of the universe?, do even gods know the answer?”,^[78] the virtue of Dāna (charity) in society,^[83] and other metaphysical issues in its hymns.^[84]

Each tradition in Hinduism has a long list of Hindu texts, with subgenre based on syncretization of ideas from Samkhya, Nyaya, Yoga, Vedantaand other schools of Hindu philosophy.^[3][4][5]

Principle Upanishads

The Upanishads (/uːˈpænɪˌʃædz, uːˈpɑːnɪˌʃɑːdz/;^[1] Sanskrit: उपनिषद् Upaniṣad [ʊpən̪ɪʂəd̪]), a part of the Vedas, are ancient Sanskrit texts that contain some of the central philosophical concepts and ideas of Hinduism, some of which are shared with religious traditions like Buddhism and Jainism.^{[2][3][note 1][note 2]} Among the most important literature in the history of Indian religions and culture, the Upanishads played an important role in the development of spiritual ideas in ancient India. More than 200 Upanishads are known, of which the first dozen or so are the oldest and most important and are referred to as the principal or main (mukhya) Upanishads.^[15][16]

Principal Upanishads, are the most ancient, widely studied Upanishads of Hinduism. Composed between 800 BCE to the start of common era, these texts are connected to the Vedic tradition.^[1] The first ten of the thirteen principle (main) upanishads were commented upon by the 8th^[5] century Hindu scholar Adi Shankaracharya. Some western scholars believe there are 13 main Upanishads but S Radhakrishna has listed 18 iof them.

All six orthodox schools of Hinduism accept the authority of śruti,^{[6][note 1]} but many in these schools denied that the śrutis are divine.^[8][9] Nāstika (heterodox) philosophies such as the Cārvākas did not accept the authority of the śrutis and considered them to be flawed human works.^[10][11]

There are four Vedas: the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda and the Atharvaveda.^[13][14]    

Samveda

The Samaveda (Sanskrit: सामवेद, sāmaveda, from sāman “song” and veda “knowledge”), is the Veda of melodies and chants.^[1] Embedded inside the Samaveda is the widely studied Chandogya Upanishad and Kena Upanishad, considered as primary Upanishads and as influential on the six schools of Hindu philosophy, particularly the Vedanta school.^[6] The classical Indian music and dance tradition considers the chants and melodies in Samaveda as one of its roots.^[7]

Shastras

Shastra means a book or treatise” in a general sense^[1] generally used as a suffix for technical or specialized knowledge in a defined area of practice.^[2] It is often a suffix, added to the subject of the treatise, such as Yoga-Shastra, Nyaya-Shastra, Dharma-Shastra, Koka- or Kama-Shastra,^[5] Moksha-Shastra, Artha-Shastra, Alamkara-Shastra (rhetoric), Kavya-Shastra (poetics), Sangita-Shastra (music), Natya-Shastra (theatre & dance) and others.^[1][2]

Shastras are predominantly post-Vedic literature, that is after about 500 BCE. Shastras of various fields of knowledge from the early 1st millennium period is of great interest as it helped the emergence of diverse schools and the spread of Indian religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism in and outside South Asia.^[3][16][17]

The shastras are not consistent or a single consensus documents. They contain opposing views and contradictory theories because they represent an ideal of human behaviour, while at the same time recognising the need to account for likely failings. The shastras do not present life as it was lived. Rather they reveal an idea of what life should be. The shastra texts constitute one of the great bodies of literature of the ancient world.^[21]

Stotra

Stotra or Stotram (stotra) is  a hymn of praise”^[1][2] designed to be melodically sung, in contrast to shastras which are composed to be recited.^[1]  A stotra can be a prayer, a description, or a conversation, but always with a poetic structure.

Notable among stotra are Shiva Tandava Stotram in praise of Shiva and Ram Raksha Stotra a prayer for protection to Lord Rama. The nama-stotra is based on chanting a litany of names for a deity. The Sahasranama, a type of nama-stotra, is a litany of a thousand names for a particular deity. Sahasranama means “1000 names”.

Shruti 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] 

Shruti texts are fixed and don’t have an author. Śrutis 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 apauruṣeya (authorless).^[4]