Newcomer to Scholar
Read the Source Texts
The Reader's Path
The Hindu scriptures are not one book. This path walks them in order: first what 'scripture' even means here, then the revealed core, then the great remembered texts, and finally the treatise that tells the whole story volume by volume.
By the end you will be able to place any Hindu text in its category and know what it contains and why it matters.
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The revealed core
What are the Vedas?The Vedic age: the world the Veda came fromThe Vedic gods: Indra, Agni and the RigvedaWhat are the Upanishads?
Going further · optional reading
The Nasadiya Sukta: the hymn that ends in doubtCommentary At the root of the oldest scripture in living use sits a creation hymn that refuses to claim certainty. Why Hinduism has no founder, and why it mattersEssay Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Sikhism each begin with a person and a moment. 3
The remembered texts
What is the Ramayana?What is the Mahabharata?What is the Bhagavad Gita?The Ashtavakra Gita: the other GitaWhat are the Puranas?
Going further · optional reading
Vimanas: did ancient India have flying machines?Research The Ramayana really does describe a flying chariot, the Pushpaka. Did the Mahabharata describe nuclear weapons?Research A famous passage claims the Mahabharata describes an ancient atomic bomb, 'brighter than a thousand… Reading the Bhagavad Gita in the modern worldCommentary What a battlefield dialogue still asks of anyone trying to act well under pressure. + 3 more in this area → When you want the deep water
Two treatises extend this path
Book-length and chaptered, read in order. Start any of them once the readings above feel familiar.