From the Bhakti List Archives

• February 29, 1996


Dear Vaishnavites,

I had a discussion with some of my colleagues about prophetic (vs) non-prophetic religions.
The argument of one of my colleagues was that Hinduism is a non-prophetic religion and hence 
it has basically guidelines but no rigorous rules like say Islam, Judaism or Christianity. 
He goes on to say that hence there are various levels of Hinduism - wherein you have different degrees 
of beliefs/non-beliefs in the various guidelines as set in the scriptures.

My question is what is the standpoint of Vaishnavism? Does it enforce certain things or are they 
guidelines per se? Can anyone shed more light on this? I apologize for the vagueness/generality(!) in 
my question?

Thanks,

Srinivasan