Shruti and Smriti

[Chandran, Nanda (NBC)]

Greetings Vaidya and thanks a lot for the informative response.

I agree with the relevence of the mantra svaroopam. But aren't they more
of the Puranic variety rathen than hard cold truths of the Upanishads. I
can only state that I'm unable to accept the view that by magic the Gods
appear before us and thus the significance of the mantras! So what's the
point? I doubt if Advaitam where the main thrust is to establish the
non-dual identity of the Atman with Brahman, will subscribe to this
view. S Radhakrishnan quotes Shankara as saying that one becomes what
one meditates upon. So it's understandable that when one meditates on
Srimath Narayana one 'feels' that he's absorbed into Narayana. Same way
when one meditates on the Self, one becomes the Self. Sameway when one
meditates on Krishna one is 'absorbed' into Krishna. For this the
smritis will serve the purpose as well as the shruti.

But it still doesn't answer the basic argument. So what makes the shruti
distinct from the smriti? Just that it's an earlier text? One doesn't
have to read Algorithmi de Numero Indorum (hey note! When they
translated the system into Latin, they knew of the source!) to learn the
current numerical system. A current 2nd class math text book will do as
well and will probably serve the purpose better.

Are you saying that the mantras and the yagnas are what're unique in the
shruti? I thought Rama refuted this sometime back in response to a
'logical' post of mine :-)

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