The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c11.9

c11.9

At this point we should recall that the Veda is viewed as ultramundane, suprahuman (*apauruṣeya*) truth, in short as "revelation." The claim to being revealed truth is in no way an unusual one for Hindu scriptures, which are as a rule considered to have been taught or recited by the Godhead to the sage, who then handed down the revealed teaching through the teacher-pupil chain. In the case of the Veda, however, the matter is subtly different. The Veda is *śruti*, "hearing," and as such is sharply differentiated from *smṛti*, "remembrance," especially from the dharma texts. The term *śruti*, however, requires some comment. It implies oral transmission by the teacher to the pupil, who learns the text by rote. In this respect, the situation is not much different from that of the *smṛti*. However, this is not the way the texts tell us the *śruti* was originally received. They were not "heard" from the Godhead but "found" and, especially, "seen" by the ecstatic seers, the *ṛṣis*. In contradistinction to the *smṛti*, which is received and transmitted through the teacher-pupil chain, there is a sharp break between the vision of the revelation and its transmission by "hearing," *śruti*. That the Veda nevertheless goes under the name of *śruti* suggests that the age of the ecstatic seers is over and the revelation complete.⁶ The only thing that remained to be done was the painfully precise transmission of the revealed knowledge by hearing and learning it by rote. From then on, the Veda became a fixed and bounded body of texts, like the scriptures of Buddhists or Jains.