| Both have a
common Holy Book, namely the Bible. The same is true with Muslims who also have two
main divisions among them. But both of them call their God Allah and the
Koran is
their Holy Book. Among Hindus too, there are two main divisions, Saivites and
Vaishnavites. But they do not refer to God by the same name. The Saivites
call him Siva and the Vaishnavites call him Vishnu. In the Tamil Nad each goes by a
separate Holy Book, Tevaaram for the former, and
Divya Prabandham for the latter. But the basis for these two scriptures is the Vedas; Divya
Prabandham is called Tamil-Vedam. The Saivites too acknowledge allegiance to the
Vedas. So, the Vedas are the taproot of all sects of our religion. Whatever
denomination we may belong to, our common allegiance is to the Vedas. The Vedas are
the source of our religion. They are spoken of as the breath of God. In the Vedas, there
is an identity of sound and sense, of the word and its meaning. The meaning resides in the
sound. |
