Fifth Veda

Text which lies outside the four canonical Vedas

The notion of a fifth Veda, that is, of a text which lies outside the four canonical Vedas, but nonetheless has the status of a Veda, is one that has been advanced in a number of post-Vedic Hindu texts, in order to accord a particular text or texts and their doctrines with the timelessness and authority that Hinduism associates with the Vedas. The idea is an ancient one, appearing for the first time in the Upanishads, but has over the centuries since then also been applied to more recent Sanskrit and vernacular texts.

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