The Sacred faith and practice of Hinduism, like in any other religion, are guided by the teachings of its Scriptures. Most of the major world religions are guided by a single text of revealed words of God as given to them by their prophets and their disciples. Hindus have many different books, teachings, and religious theories to follow according to one's own belief, understanding and intellectual level as well as regional and family tradition and culture. This sometimes causes much confusion in the understanding of the faith for many outsiders and even among some sections of Hindus. This occasionally causes fighting among some of these groups. These fights often revealed their ignorance, since the learned ones always reminded the Unity in the basic Truth and considered the different teachings as the different paths to the same Ultimate Goal.

The Srutis are the Vedas, which were received by the great Hindu Rishis, the Seers or Saints as an intuition by direct revelations from God and are held to be entirely Superhuman. Hindus believe that the Universe goes through endless cycles of creation and total dissolution into Primary Matter, Prakriti. At this time, the Supreme God, as Nirguna Brahmam, or Paramaathma creates Brahma as His own manifestation, Saguna Brahmam, to create a new Universe. He teaches the sound of Pranava Mantra "OM" and the knowledge of the Vedas to Brahma as his very own breath. All worlds and all lives are created by Brahma out of this knowledge of Vedas and Pranava. Thus the Vedas and Pranava precede all civilizations and the creation itself, as the very breath of God. They are without beginning or end and is the storehouse of Hindu wisdom. Lord Brahma, the creator, imparted the divine knowledge to the Rishis. Sruti means what is heard, and so are not claimed to be composed or written by these Rishis who get the spiritual knowledge by the Divine revelations. The Vedas that are eternal, are obtained by the meditative powers of the Rishis. They were written and organized as four texts by Sage Vyasa much later.