So when a person is called dvija, second birth, when he goes to the spiritual master and takes lessons from Veda . . . this upana . . . the sacred thread is called upanayana . . . upanayana means to bring him nearer. Upa means nearer, and nayana means bringing. To take a fallen soul nearer, that is called upanayana.
And when the spiritual master sees that he is quite competent to come near to God, he recognizes him and he gives him sacred thread. That is called brāhmin. That is the symbol that he has approached a ācārya. Ācāryavān puruṣo veda (Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.14.2). How one is understood that he knows spiritual science? That means who has got a spiritual master. These things are there. Śrutir mātā. Śrutir mātā.
Smṛtir api tathā vakti bhaginī. Now, I have . . . we have divided the Vedic literature into two. The knowledge which is coming in disciplic succession, that knowledge is mother, and this knowledge, by memory, in with reference to the context of Vedic literature, if you sometimes write, that literature is the sister. That is compared with sister. One is with the mother, and the other is the sister.
So purāṇādyā ye vā sahaja nivahās te tad-anugā. So all these Purāṇas, they are called śruti. There are eighteen Purāṇas, the Mahābhārata, the Rāmāyaṇa, and there are so many, Vedānta-sūtra . . . they are called . . . Upaniṣad is Veda; it is śruti. That is the gist of Vedic knowledge. But Purāṇas, they are called smṛti. So this śruti smṛtir, according to Indian theistic scholarship, there are two kinds of literature: śruti, smṛti.