Śruti — that which was heard

Śruti is not what someone wrote. It is what the ṛṣis heard — the word 'ṛṣi' means seer, one who saw the mantra rather than composed it. The claim is precise: the Veda is apauruṣeya, not of personal authorship, and therefore carries no author's fallibility.

What apauruṣeya claims and does not claim

• It does not claim a god dictated it — Mīmāṁsā, which defends the doctrine most rigorously, does not require a creator at all.
• It claims the mantras are eternally existent sound-structures, and the ṛṣis are the ones who perceived them.
• It follows that the Veda has no date of composition, only dates of perception and of transmission.
• It follows that error cannot enter through an author's ignorance, since no author intervened.
• It follows that śruti is self-valid: it does not depend on any other text to establish it.

The preservation — the most exact oral transmission ever devised

The Veda was carried for thousands of years without writing, and with a fidelity that written traditions do not achieve. It was done by mathematics. The text was memorised not once but in a series of permutations, so that any error in one recitation was exposed by the others.

What counts as śruti

All four layers of all four Vedas — Saṁhitā, Brāhmaṇa, Āraṇyaka and Upaniṣad. The Upaniṣads are śruti; the Gītā, though it carries comparable standing in practice, is technically smṛti. Some Āgama traditions claim śruti status for their own revelation; the Vedic schools do not concede it, and both positions are on the record.

॥ ❖ ॥

Last revised 2026-08-16. Corrections are welcome — see how this site is written.