One will be surprised to know that the Hindu Religion is not a religion of one book or two books, it is a religion guided by HUNDREDS OF MUTUALLY CONFLICTING BOOKS.
Let us see some of them:
1. The Vedas (4)
2. The Upanishads (> 100)
3. The Brahmans (~ 10)
4. The Aranyakas (~ 10)
5. The Puranas (18)
6. The Epics (2) etc.
The above details are only for the sake of introduction. Each one of them will be dealt in detail at an appropriate place. Among these books, the Vedas are supposed to be the oldest and the most revered. Whether fortunately or Unfortunately, about more than 99% of the Hindus have NEVER SEEN EVEN ONE VEDA WITH THEIR OWN EYES!
Then come the Upanishads that are supposed to be the routes to understand the Vedas and the Vedic teachings. More than 100 being in number, there are hardly 100 men in India among the population of Seven hundred and Fifty Million who might have properly studied all the Upanishads and the Vedas. The latter, Brahmanas and the Aranyakas are more difficult to obtain than the previous. All these books hardly supply any information on the way of life that a man is supposed to lead. They talk either on rituals, sacrifices, and prayers or on praises of God.
Further, the Puranas are of course, more easily available and are known even to the common masses through stories, folklore, movies etc. Many a times, the Hindus do not even know from what Purana are they quoting but they narrate lengthy stories of Devi Devatas (idols). Each Puran has a name that consists the name of the main deity, who is generally the central figure. For example, Siva Puran talks about the cooked up stories that project Siva as the ULTIMATE DEITY!!! Then, in Vishnu Puran, the central figure is Vishnu and this time around, it is Vishnu who is praised and elevated to the level of the ULTIMATE DIETY!!! More details of the Puranas will be given at its related chapter.
The Epics are the stories where in the details of places, men etc are earthly. Two principal epics are Ramaayana and Mahaa Bhaaratha. The famous Hindu spiritual book, “The Bhagavad Gita” or ‘The Geeta’ in short forms a small part of the Maha Bharatha.
There are many more sundry books in Hinduism and it is really difficult to draw a dividing line between the Holy and ordinary books of Hinduism.
Finally, it has to be said that all these books have confused an average Hindu. Some think that all these deities really exist and some disregard their existence altogether. Some disrespect them and some revere them like hell! As mentioned earlier, none of the above-mentioned books has given a set of rules or a codes of conduct (whether right or wrong) for a Hindu! All the books deal with spirituality, polytheism and polytheistic rituals/ prayers (a minority of the books is an exception).
For the sake of giving a code of conduct, the Hindus have invented another set of books called as the Smrithi. For further entertainment of common viewers of this site, the Hindus don’t have one Smrithi but, many! Manu Smrithi, Yagnavalkya Smrithi and Parasara Smrithi are a few of them.
