Spirit_Warrior
Active Member
I will just add a few tid-bits to what you have already been told. Hinduism has thousands, if not tens of thousands of scriptures. You will literally need lifetimes to read all the scriptures in Hinduism and understand them. They are not short scriptures either -- Mahabharata, Ramayana, Yoga Vasistha, the major Puranas are all massive texts. This is why to study the scriptures of Hinduism you need to invest a lot of time and energy. Just when you think you know the religion, you read another scripture and learn something new.
Still, there are some general scriptures accepted in Hinduism. Almost all Hindus(except perhaps some tantrik sects and Lingayats Hindus) accept the Vedas are the source scriptures of all Hinduism, and which is the foundation of all the later scriptures. However as Kiran has already told you, barely anybody reads the Vedas and for a majority of Hindus they have no importance. That is because they are mostly sacrificial texts for Brahmins(especially the Brahmanas) that Brahmins chant over fire sacrifices or yagyas. So Hindus only know the Vedas through the chanting of mantras from the Vedas at yagyas, at Hindu weddings and other ceremonies --- some of the most famous chants are the Rudra Suktam, Purusha Suktam and Devi Suktam.
I did actually make an effort to read the Vedas, but because Vedas are written in an archaic form of Vedic Sanskrit which was ancient even by the time of Panaini(who standardised classical Sanskrit) the only way to approach them is through English or Hindi translations, and most people do not agree the translations are accurate, and every translation becomes controversial.
So because the Vedas are inaccessible, a majority of Hindus if they read any scripture will read the Bhagvad Gita, because it is considered to have the essence of the teachings of the Vedas, Upanishads. Incidentally, the Bhagvad Gita is a part of the Mahabharata, so the Mahabharata is seen by many Hindus as the essence of all Hinduism and an example of how to really live as a Hindu.
More learned Hindus will also make a study of the Upanishads(some verses from the Upanishads are repeated verbatim in the Gita)
The rest of the scriptures depends upon your samapradaya(traditions) for Vendantins the 13 Upanishads, Bhagvad Gita and Brahma forms a triple-canon(prasthana-trayi) And depending on which school of Vedanta you belong to, there are additional introductory texts which also serve as scriptures for some(like the works of Shankara, Ramaunja, Madhva, Vallabha) but they did not claim to be scriptures, they are more philosophical summaries of their respective schools.
Then there are the Agamas which emerge in the medieval period in the Tantra phase which are accepted as scriptures in different Shaiva, Shakta and Vaishanava sects. They are often presented as dialogues between Shiva and Parvati(I have not read any Vaishnava agamas, so don't know how they are presented) so because they read like actual gospel from Shiva, they are taken to be revelation. My fav in this category is Vijnana Bharaiva Tantra in the Kashmir Shiavism school.
The Puranas also have a lot of importance and most Hindus don't read the Puranas, but know from them stories - e.g. Krishna frolics in his childhood, his killing of demons, his love affairs are all stories from Puranas, and are not there in the original Mahabharata. The stories of Prahlad and the Dashavatara are also from the Puranas and not in the Mahabharata. Same goes for stories about Shiva -- which Puranas you read can also be decided by which sect you belong to.
You then also have the stand-alone philosophical texts(darsanas) which are also considered scriptures of Hinduism in some sense, but they are more like technical philosophical treatises like Nyaya Sutras, Vaiseshika Sutras, Mimamsa Sutras, Samkhya Sutras, Vedanta Sutras, Yoga Sutras.
There are so many Hindu scriptures, that they will always keep you busy. I have only been able to read dozens in about 40 years.