How can we know that the Vedas and the stories in them are true?

Documentary about the historicity of Krishna:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
outside the scope of time. Thank you.
Hare Krishna Question How can we know that the Vedas are true and that the stories given there are true when it has been written so long ago and how can we know that it’s still authentic Answer First of all we have to understand the principle of revelation that if we just look at the world around us with our open mind then we can see that there is so many facilities provided for us for living. We have thirst, we need for water and water is provided. We have hunger, need for food and food is provided.
We need air and there is air provided so many of the facilities for living are provided and this world is almost like a instrument or a device which has been provided with provided for our existence so now the very important requirement for existence also is knowledge so if as we can see the evidence for design so much in the world and as we can see that so many of the necessities are provided for will whoever is the designer not provide the knowledge of how to live and why to live in this world naturally that knowledge will be provided and that knowledge which is provided by god is the principle of revelation so from a point of view of logic we can understand that the that god will provide knowledge just as he provides everything else so whenever somebody makes a very complex device and gives it to someone now would a person give a very complex and expensive and very carefully designed intricately designed device to someone without providing knowledge of how the device is to be used unlikely that person will surely provide a manual so now the question comes up how do we know that the Vedas are the manual how do we know that any book this book is manual for this particular device we try to see if by reading that book I can make better sense of that device and whether by reading that book I can help I can make the device work better so like that by studying the Vedic scriptures if it helps us to make better sense of the world make better sense of our life and more importantly by applying its principles if we can understand that it helps us to make our life better improve our life then that is a preliminary confirmation of the possible authenticity of that book as a manual now going further regarding the truths of the stories so now first going further with respect to deeper and confirmation of the principles that is the more we live the more we will see how those principles are true and the more our faith will deepen so there are many advanced devotees very great saints who we can see from their lives are selfless pure hearted compassionate highly principled and their words inspire faith ultimately any knowledge that we have it requires faith now even when we study medical knowledge and we study history how do we know whether a particular king invaded a particular king we just read in the history books now if we go back there is a source for that but there is it ultimately depends on faith in some authority so if we say that say this king invaded this king how do we know there is some historian who has done it now that historian may not be reliable if that historian is partial to one of the two kings then that historian may twist history accordingly so we need faith then the question comes up whom do we put faith in it is if you look at the lives of the acharyas their lives are exemplary and their character inspires faith they are eminently worthy of putting faith in and that’s why at one level we use our intelligence to understand the principle of revelation that god will surely provide knowledge at another level we see that those who are living and teaching scripture they are faith worthy and thirdly we see that these principles will benefit us in our own lives if we apply them in our lives so this is how we can understand the broad principle of the Vedic scriptures being true that the great acharyas are saying they are true and they to the extent we try them in our lives apply them we will find that we will find that truth within them to be experientially confirmed now regarding the stories within them being true we have to recognize that the stories are involving supernatural events which cannot be tested or replicated so for example Krishna lifting Govardhan we cannot replicate that in fact in general when we look at history history cannot be replicated at all we can’t replicate a particular battle that happened at a particular time so history has to be dependent on historical records so we by our normal method of history normal historical research cannot confirm especially the supernatural activity that Krishna did but there are other things that can be confirmed for example there is archaeology so the Mahabharata talks about a war at Kurukshetra the Bhagavatam talks about a place called Vrindavan and these places are there and not only is Vrindavan still there but Vrindavan is a place which is filled with Krishna Bhakti and Kurukshetra is a place where there is still there are still landmarks which indicate that this is a spot where ancient battle took place and further so archaeology can also give us some confirmation so one is the archaeology another is we can look at alternative sources that is apart from the scriptures which describe certain events what about others so now there are apart from the scriptures for many events which are given there are alternative sources also that means say whether Krishna is a historical person or not how do we know so there are there were in Indian history Buddhists and Jains who were quite widespread and influential at one time and they critiqued the Vedic path at that time and they have criticized Krishna but while criticizing Krishna nowhere in the Buddhists or Jain critiques do we find that one of the critiques is that Krishna is an imaginary person no they all accept that Krishna is a person who was existing and then they try to fault his character or they try to find fault in his teachings but all of them now they have no reason to make somebody into God somebody may say oh you are a Krishna bhakta so you made you already believe in this so you exaggerate Krishna stories but that’s not what these people they have no bias like that in fact their bias is opposed but still they have talked about Krishna and none of them have talked about Krishna as non-historical or mythological now beyond that there is also a field which is coming up and it’s called archaeoastronomy which is very much helpful in getting scientific evidences for the principle of historicity of Krishna archaeoastronomy means that the Vedic scriptures for example the Mahabharata describes certain astronomical formations that were there at the time of say the Mahabharata war before say the 13th day of the war or at the end of the 14th day of the war certain formations at other time there are other different formations so now using our sophisticated computer calculations and knowing our current knowledge of the path of the skies path of the various bodies in the skies we can know when those particular formations occurred for example now it is said that at the start of the Kali Yuga which is around according to the scriptures 5000 years ago which is time when Krishna was about to wind up his pastimes and depart so all the sun, the moon and all the visible planets aligned in one line from the earth now this is an extremely rare cosmological event and with computer calculations we can know that this has happened 5000 years ago so Dr. Richard L. Thomson Sadaput Prabhu was a prominent disciple of Srila Prabhupada he had a PhD from Cornell University in mathematics and he has done exhaustive research to point this out and he has written several books on this topic also so Deva Amrit Maharaj has written a book called Searching for Vedic India in which he has given the he has given the historical evidences multiple evidences for the historicity of Krishna and along with this I am also sending a link for a documentary