nta. The Smritis have varied from time to time. As essential conditions changed, as various circumstances came to have their influence on the race, manners and customs had to be changed, and these Smritis, as mainly regulating the manners and customs of the nation, had also to be changed from time to time. But the basic principles in the Vedanta, like the dynamics of the soul, which are eternal do not change. Then there are the Puraanas. They deal with history, cosmology, symbolic illustrations of philosophical principles, and so forth. They were written to popularise the religion of the Vedas. They give the lives of saints and kings and great men and historical events, etc. The sages made use of these to illustrate the eternal principles of religion. There are still other books, the Tantras. These are very much like the Puranas in some respects, and in some of them there is an attempt to revive the old sacrificial ideas of the Karma Kaanda. All these books constitute the scriptures of the Hindus. When there is such a mass of sacred books in a nation and a race ehich has devoted the greatest part of its energies to the thought of philosophy and spirituality, it is quite natural that there should be so many sects. These sects differ very much from each other in certain points. But there are some essential principles which are common to all sects and which constitute the core of Hinduism. First is the question of creation. The idea of Hinduism is that this nature, Prakriti or Maayaa is infinite, without beginning. The creative energy is ever active. There never was a time when that energy did not work. The Sanskrit word for creation, properly translated, should be `projection'. There is the law of cycles. The whole of this nature exists, it becomes finer, subsides; then the whole thing is again projected forth, only again to become finer and finer, until the whole thing subsides, and again comes out. Thus it goes on backwards and forwards...
