The entire scriptures and religious texts in all religions in the world
can be traced as a mixture or amalgamation of ideas coming from two sources
viz. Shruti and Smriti. The former refers to what is termed as eternal truth
and the latter refers to their application or adaptation in a contemporary
context. In fact all the conflicts between the various religious ideologies
will go away if their respective scholars realise this simple truth and not
waste theirs’ and others’ time by harping on Only My God (OMG) and Only My
Scripture (OMS) theories. Many of the so-called experts in comparative
religious studies are highly skewed towards their own religion and display
complete ignorance when it comes to the fundamentals of other religions. They
lack the basic understanding of Shruti and Smriti, and display absolute hatred
towards other faiths.
As the word Shruti itself means, it is what has come to us by word of
mouth and is seen spread all over the religious texts. The Shruti elements
are easily identifiable to the impartial seekers. Shruti always refers to the
eternally sustainable aspects of existence. It will have no connection
whatsoever to the contemporary and will have no reference to contemporary
characters or incidents in history. In stark contrast, Smriti elements will
always be contextual and will have to be understood in the context. If taken
out of context and applied as such, Smriti will spell disaster for mankind. I
am afraid this is happening very much in our present day world. The root causes
of many of our current conflicts is due to this wrong interpretation of Smriti
elements from the sacred texts. What was perfectly logical in a tribal
society centuries back (Smriti) is definitely illogical and out of place at present.
The best way to understand Shruti is by putting it to a simple test. All
Shruti elements must necessarily relate to sustainability of mankind. For
example, if some God had said Satyameva Jayathe (Truth alone triumphs), it is
quite possible that we take it as Shruti. But that is the mistake we make. The
Shruti element must be something like “Dharma shall always triumph” because we
know very well that Truth is not always the one that will sustain us. The best
example of Smriti is nothing but Manusmriti. The text also contains Shruti
elements, but most of it is acknowledged to be Smriti. And we all know the
debate and confusion it creates when some of the fanatics interpret it as
Shruti. The same problem persists for many of the texts in the Semitic
religions and the world is paying a heavy price for the human fallacy.
