How to use a Japa Mala --- Śruti.

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• published: 08 May 2013
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Śhruti (Sanskrit: श्रुति, IAST: śhrúti, lit. "hearing, listening"), often spelled sruti or sruthi mainly in South India, is the body of sacred texts comprising the central canon of Hinduism and is one of the three main sources of dharma. These sacred works span much of the history of Hinduism, beginning with some of the earliest known Hindu texts and ending in the early modern period with the later Upanishads. This literature differs from other sources of Hindu Philosophy, particularly smriti or "remembered text", because of the purely divine origin of śruti. This belief of divinity is particularly prominent within the Mimamsa tradition. The initial literature is traditionally believed to be a direct revelation of the "cosmic sound of truth" heard by ancient Rishis who then translated what was heard into something understandable by humans. Hinduism in itself being a pluralistic philosophy allows for more than one interpretation of any texts including and up to the Śruti texts. However since its origin is considered divine in nature, the interpretations of śruti cannot be ascribed to a set group of people who were granted access to this information, like the Acharyas (teachers), for the purpose of interpretation. Since the nature of the Acharya and/or external factors such as regional customary laws followed by a person who reads and interprets the Vedas, may change the meaning of what is understood, therefore the interpretations, in conjunction with the interpreters' own knowledge are ascribed as Smriti, that provide further human interpretation of Śruti. Together therefore the Śruti and Smriti texts form the information hierarchy that Hindus looked toward to dictate the proper conduct of their lives. The specific information regarding such proper conduct was not found directly in the Vedas (Śruti) because they do not contain explicit codes or rules that would be found in a legal system. However, because of the Vedas' divine and unadulterated form, a rule in the Smriti that claims connection to this literature is given more merit even if it does not cite a specific passage.[8] However since the theosophy of the Śruti in inherently different to 'Abrahamic religion' or 'religion' for that matter, it contains no 'rules' or 'laws' in their entirety. In this sense, even though 'Śruti' exists as a source for all Hindu Laws as developed from 'Smriti' without dictating any specifics, it is important to note that all Smriti is not about law either, in contrast to its entirety, only a trivial amount of these human interpretations called Smriti can be associated with some sort of 'rules' or 'laws'. More often than not the fascination of Indologists and western theologians alike to want to find similarities between what may have been their own beliefs often led to them to look for such connections under the purview of Hindu Law. A good example of this is the Dharmaśāstra (a Smriti text), which because of its sophisticated jurisprudence, was taken by early British colonial administrators to be the law of the land for Hindus in India.Ever since, Dharmaśāstra has been linked with Hindu law, despite the fact that its contents deal as much or more with religious life as with law. In fact, a separation of religion and law within Dharmaśāstra is artificial and has been repeatedly questioned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sruti http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUsrA1iG189z9FDfQpyeuYg http://www.himalayaninstitute.org/