ABSTRACT
The Upanisads are among the most important religious and philosophical Hindu texts. Significant ideas that are still embraced by millions of Hindus today, such as atman (the eternal self), brahman (the cosmic divine force), karma, reincarnation. And the idea that salvation can be defined as freedom from an endless cycle of death and rebirth are first formulated in these ancient Sanskrit texts. For devout Hindus, the Upanisads are considered sruti, or authoritative sacred text. There are two distinct terms used for sacred texts in Hinduim, sruti and smrti. Sruti, which can be translated as "that which is heard", is a category than encompasses the oldest Sanskrit texts: the four Vedas, the ritual Brahmana and Aranyaka texts, and the principal Upanisads. Smrti ("that which is remembered") includes works on the six Vedangas (auxiliary Vedic sciences: phonetics, prosody, grammar, etymology, rituals, and astrology), the epic poems of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, legal literature, and the mythological texts of the Puranas.
