Question from Daniel:
Hi. I wanted to know if there is any mass revelation/miracle in The Vedas (i.e Miracles that were performed in front of many people)?
Answer by SmartLX:
I was a Christian once but I was never a Hindu, and never discussed religion with my few Hindu friends in school. Right off the bat I invite any Hindus reading this to comment right away and set us straight.
From what I can gather after some brief research is that the Vedas are not written as a history or a narrative like most books of the Bible are. The four Vedas mostly consist of hymns to the various gods (most intended to be heard in song rather than read), descriptions of rituals, and discussion of philosophy. There are bits of history woven into it all concerning the people from whom the texts emerged, but if they were ever intended to be taken as literal accounts of major events, Hindus tend not to take that view nowadays.
Your question is often used to advance an argument for the truth of Judaism, sometimes known as the Sinai argument, which claims that the supposedly uniquely mass-spectated nature of the miracles in the Torah supports their veracity. Christians sometimes argue along the same lines based on the story of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance to five hundred people.
I’ll leave it to followers of other religions to make their own claims of mass revelations, but the basic problem with all of these stories is the same: accounts of witnesses are not witnesses. Each of these stories is still just one account, with only one source to believe or disbelieve regarding the number of people present. Contrast it with a big event happening in the middle of a city today; tweets and Facebook posts from hundreds of sources or more can flood the web, arguing over details but collectively leaving no doubt that something major went down. An account is an account even if it contains emojis.