Smrti

(“[that which is] remembered”) An
important class of Hindu religious literature that, despite its sacrality, is
deemed less authoritative than the
other major category, shruti. According
to tradition, the shruti (“heard”) texts
were not composed by human beings
but are based in the primordial vibrations of the cosmos itself. The ancient
sages, whose faculties of perception had
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been sharpened through rigorous religious practice, were able to “hear” and
understand these vibrations, and transmitted them to others in a lineage of
learning. The smrti texts, in contrast, are
attributed to human authors, who are
putting forth matters that are “remembered” and thus carry with them the
possibility of error. The smrti literature
is wider and much more varied than the
shruti, which is restricted to the texts in
the Vedas; smrti literature includes the
dharma literature, the sectarian compilations known as puranas, the two great
epics (Mahabharata and Ramayana),
the Bhagavad Gita, and the tantras,
which are manuals detailing the secret,
ritually based religious practice of tantra
followers. Although theoretically the
smrtis have less religious authority than
the shrutis, in practical terms they are
often far more important, in part
because their contents are much better
known. This is particularly true for sectarian Hinduism, in which a group’s sectarian literature will often be given the
highest religious authority.