Are The Vedic Scriptures Valid?

To accept anything blindly is certainly bad. But to reject something blindly is worse.

If we do not have faith because we consider ourselves to be students of science, then we must remember that science also proves or disproves a theory only after proper experimentation and doesn't just dismiss it.

Scriptures have stood the test of time. For us, there are three ways to check their authenticity:

1. Manuals

2. Axiomatic truths 

3. Astonishing predictions

1. Manuals: Whenever we buy a gadget, we get a manual along with it. The manual tells us which buttons to press to get specific things done. If the gadget works the way the manual tells us it will, then the manual must be true.

Similarly, if we do not have faith in the scriptures, w not reject them. We can try applying the principles mentioned in them in our life and see if they work. If they don't, we can always give up. But if we look around us, we will find that practices such as meditation, yoga and kirtan are becoming increasingly popular all over the world for the benefits they offer, and these practices come from our scriptures. We can apply the same in our life and see for ourselves the impact that they have. 

2. Axiomatic truths: An axiomatic truth is a truth that needs no verification.

There are many such truths mentioned in the Vedic scriptures that were earlier rejected, but have now been verified and embraced by science.

Some of them are:

•Cow dung is pure. No one could believe that the dung of an animal could be pure. The scriptures mention only cow dung to be pure and not the dung of any animal. Sometimes we see that when a yajna is about to other take place, the place is smeared with Cow dung and Cow dung cakes are even used for the ritual. The same is not true for any other living entity.

•The earth is round. Earlier everyone believed that it was flat. 

•Plants have life (are living beings). It was only around the 1950s after Jagdish Chandra Bose proved this that everyone else started accepting this fact.

•Child within the womb. Sonography is a recent invention (around 1970) that shows us the growth of the child within a mother's womb. But Srimad Bhagavatam, the greatest scripture, compiled by Vyasadev around five thousand years ago, mentions the child within the womb in the third canto and that too in great detail.

3. Astonishing predictions: The Vedic scriptures also make accurate predictions of incarnations of great personalities who will appear in the future. Some of the personalities predicted to be reborn, along with the text in which they are mentioned, are given below:

•Buddha (Srimad Bhagavatam 1.3.24) •Chanakya (Srimad Bhagavatam 12.1.11)

•Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (Mahabharata Ml92.15, SrimadBhagavatam 11.5.32) 

•Chandragupta and Emperor Ashoka (Srimad Bhagavatam 12.1.12)

• Jesus and Mohammed (Bhavishya Purana, Atharva Veda, Kanda 20, Shukta 127, 1-3)

There are also vivid predictions about the degradations that will occur in Kali Yuga (the current age). Some of them are:

• Food will be sold publicly in marketplaces. (In the past, food was never sold; it was only given in charity. But nowadays, every third shop sells food items.)

• Might will be right. (In the past, a person was respected for his learning. But nowadays it is only wealth or brute force that commands respect.) 

• A Brahman will be known simply by the thread he wears. (A real Brahman is one who possesses the qualities of a Brahman, such as peacefulness, self-control, austerity etc.)

If the scriptures are of mundane origin, then how is it possible for them to state profound truths that modern science has only recently started discovering? How can scriptures make accurate predictions about future occurrences? 

The answer is obvious: the scriptures have come from one who is all knowing, who knows the past, present and future. In other words, the Vedas are the words of God and thus perfect.