Hinduism's Most Popular Scriptures

• The oldest form of Hindu scriptures, Veda, means wisdom or knowledge, and contains hymns, prayers and ritual texts composed during a period of a thousand years.
  
• The Upanishads are a collection of secret teachings including mystical ideas about man and the universe. The word, Brahman, comes into focus within this group, which is the basis of reality, and atman, which is the self or soul.
  
• Next is the Ramayana, which is one of two major tales of India. The work consists of 24,000 couplets based on the life of Rama, a righteous king who was an incarnation of the God Vishnu.
  
• The Mahabharata is the second epic and is the story of the deeds of the Aryan clans. It is composed of 100,000 verses written over a 800 year period. Contained within this work is a classic called the Bhagavad Gita, or the "Song of the Blessed Lord." It is one of the most sacred books of the Hindus and the most read of all Indian works in the entire world. The story is centered on man's duty, which, if carried out, will bring nothing but sorrow. The significance of this story is based on Hindu belief of bhatki, (devotion to a particular god as a means of salvation). These two stories have become ideals for the people of India in terms of moral and social behavior.
  
• The Puranas are an important source for the understanding of Hinduism, and include legends of gods, goddesses, demons, and ancestors describing pilgrimages and rituals to demonstrate the importance of bhatki, caste and dharma (basic principles of the cosmos or an ancient sage in Hindu mythology worshipped as a god by some lower castes).