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The Great Texts
The scriptures of the Hindu tradition, each explained in plain words: what it is, what it holds, what it teaches, and why it has lasted.
Vedas
The Vedas
The first words a people sang into the dark and called holy
The Rigveda
The oldest songs of a people facing the dawn
The Yajurveda
The Veda placed into the hands of the priest at the altar
The Samaveda: The Veda That Is Sung
Where the holy word becomes melody and breath
The Atharvaveda
The Veda of healing, home, and the unseen powers of life
Upanishads
The Upanishads
Where the Veda turns inward and the Self meets the Absolute
The Isha Upanishad
The Lord dwells in all; act, but do not grasp.
The Kena Upanishad
That by which the mind thinks cannot itself be thought
The Katha Upanishad
A boy faces Death and asks the one true question
The Prashna Upanishad
Six questions carried to a teacher's fire, six answers that open the self
The Mundaka Upanishad
Two kinds of knowing, and the one worth seeking
The Mandukya Upanishad
Twelve verses that hold the whole of waking, dream, and silence
The Taittiriya Upanishad
From speech to silence, through the sheaths to bliss
The Aitareya Upanishad
The Self alone was here, and it longed to see.
The Chandogya Upanishad
The seed within the seed, and the self within all
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
Where the sage taught that the self is dearest of all
The Shvetashvatara Upanishad
Where the formless Absolute becomes a God you can love
The Kaushitaki Upanishad
Where the breath of life and the light of consciousness become one
The Maitri Upanishad
The restless mind, and the still self beyond it
Itihasa
The Ramayana
The story of one who stayed good when goodness cost everything
The Mahabharata
The war of cousins, and the weight of doing right
The Bhagavad Gita
A song sung in the space between two armies
The Harivamsha
The life of Krishna sung as the crown of the epic
Puranas
The Puranas: The Ancient Tellings
The scriptures that carried God into every home
The Brahma Purana
The first of the Puranas, a pilgrim's open road
The Padma Purana
From the lotus of creation, a hymn to Vishnu's grace
The Vishnu Purana
Where all the worlds turn around the sleeping Lord
The Shiva Purana
The God of the Mountain, revealed to those who love him
The Bhagavata Purana
The book that taught India how to love God
The Narada Purana
The wandering sage sings the way of devotion
The Markandeya Purana
Where the Goddess slays the demons and the world remembers Her name
The Agni Purana
Fire's own encyclopedia of all that may be known
The Bhavishya Purana
The Purana that claims to speak of what is yet to come
The Brahmavaivarta Purana
Where Radha and Krishna reign as the breath of all worlds
The Linga Purana
The pillar of light, the formless made present
The Varaha Purana
The boar who lifted the drowning earth on his tusks
The Skanda Purana
The vast pilgrim's atlas of a sacred land
The Vamana Purana
Where the smallest form holds the whole world
The Kurma Purana
The tortoise who bore the world, telling the world its story
The Matsya Purana
The fish who carried the world through the flood
The Garuda Purana
What the soul meets when the body falls away
The Brahmanda Purana
The scripture of the cosmic egg, where Lalita's thousand names sing
The Devi Bhagavata Purana
The Mother is the ground beneath all gods.
Darshanas
The Six Darshanas: The Great Ways of Seeing
Six paths of reasoning toward the one freedom
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
The mind made still, and the seer set free
The Brahma Sutras
The seed-text of Vedanta, opened by a thousand commentaries
The Nyaya Sutras
How clear thinking becomes a path to freedom
The Vaisheshika Sutras
The world taken apart, atom by atom, to find what is real
The Samkhya Karika
Consciousness and nature, told apart, and the soul set free
The Mimamsa Sutras
The grammar of sacred action and the eternal word
Agamas and Tantras
The Shaiva Agamas
The scriptures that teach how Shiva is met and worshipped
The Vaishnava Agamas: Pancharatra and Vaikhanasa
The scriptures that teach a stone to hold God
The Shakta Tantras
The scriptures that name God a Mother and a power
Smriti
The Smriti Literature
What was remembered, so dharma could be lived
The Manusmriti
A law of the world, revered, debated, never neutral
The Yajnavalkya Smriti
The lawbook that taught India to reason about justice
The Narada Smriti
The law book that speaks like a courtroom
The Parashara Smriti
A book of dharma written tenderly for a hard age
Vedanta Schools
Shankara and the Path of Non-Duality
One reality, without a second, and you are not apart from it
Ramanuja and Vishishtadvaita
God is real, the world is real, and love is the way home
Madhva and the Way of Dvaita
God is real, you are real, and the difference is forever true
Vallabha and Shuddhadvaita: The Path of Grace
The whole world is real, and God's, and held by grace
Nimbarka and Dvaitadvaita: Difference and Non-Difference Held Together
The soul is one with God, and never the same