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At this point, we have to keep in mind another very important truth. All other religions prevalent in the world hold as authoritative communications made to some holy persons by God Himself in His Corporate Form, or through some Superhuman personalities or embodiments of parts or portions of Divinity. Bharathiyas do not follow this line. They declare that the Vedas are based on no human authority; they do not depend on any man for their validity. They are emanations direct from God; they are primeval; they are their own authority and validity. They were not written down or composed, constructed or put together. The Cosmos or Creation is limitless, eternal and it has neither beginning nor end. So too, the Voice of God, namely the Vedas have no limit, they are eternal, they have no beginning nor end. 'Vid', the root from which the word Veda is derived, means, 'to know'. When Knowledge began the Vedas too manifested. The rishis visualised and announced them. They are the 'see-ers of mantras' - the mantra-drshtas. The Vedas have two major sections: the Karmakanda and the Jnanakanda. First comes the Karmakanda and it is followed by the Jnanakanda. In the Karmakanda, a number of different 'krathus' or sacrifices in which oblations are offered in the sanctified fire, are mentioned. Most of them have been given up by Bharathiyas in recent times, since it has become difficult to perform them with the exactitude the Vedic rules prescribe. Some still continue in a very attenuated form. In the Karmakanda, the moral codes are insisted upon very much. The moral rules and restrictions regulating life and conduct refer to the Brahmachari (the student) stage, the Grhastha (householder) stage, the Vanaprastha (recluse) stage and the Sanyasa (monastic) stage. Also, the Karmakanda declares what is right and wrong for people following various professions and occupying different statuses. These are being followed here and there, in some thin form, by people in India. |