section_path: Post-Vedic literature/"Fifth" and other Vedas
section_name: "Fifth" and other Vedas
paragraph_text: "Fifth" and other Vedas
  
  Some post-Vedic texts, including the Mahabharata, the Natyasastra and certain Puranas, refer to themselves as the " fifth Veda ". The earliest reference to such a "fifth Veda" is found in the Chandogya Upanishad in hymn 7.1.2.
  
  Let drama and dance (Nātya, नाट्य) be the fifth vedic scripture. Combined with an epic story, tending to virtue, wealth, joy and spiritual freedom, it must contain the significance of every scripture, and forward every art. Thus, from all the Vedas, Brahma framed the Nātya Veda. From the Rig Veda he drew forth the words, from the Sama Veda the melody, from the Yajur Veda gesture, and from the Atharva Veda the sentiment.
  
  " Divya Prabandha ", for example Tiruvaymoli, is a term for canonical Tamil texts considered as Vernacular Veda by some South Indian Hindus.
  
  Other texts such as the Bhagavad Gita or the Vedanta Sutras are considered shruti or "Vedic" by some Hindu denominations but not universally within Hinduism. The Bhakti movement, and Gaudiya Vaishnavism in particular extended the term veda to include the Sanskrit Epics and Vaishnavite devotional texts such as the Pancharatra.