दत्तमिष्टं हुतं चैव तप्तानि च तपांसि च।
वेदाः सत्यप्रतिष्ठानास्तस्मात्सत्यपरो भवेत्॥
dattam iṣṭaṁ hutaṁ caiva taptāni ca tapāṁsi ca
vedāḥ satya-pratiṣṭhānās tasmāt satya-paro bhavet
dattam = charity; iṣṭam = worship; hutam ca eva = sacrifice; taptāni ca = that one performs; tapāṁsi = austerities; ca = and; vedāḥ = the Vedas [that teach these]; satya-pratiṣṭhānāḥ = are founded on truthfulness; tasmāt = therefore; satya-paraḥ = fixed on truthfulness; bhavet = one should become.
Charity, worship, sacrifice, austerities that one performs and the Vedas [that teach these] are founded on truthfulness.1 Therefore, one should become fixed on truthfulness.
1 Veda itself means “information,” that is, true information with no admixture of untruth in it. One can speak untruth intentionally or unintentionally but there is no untruth of either type in the Vedas. “True” means “in accordance with fact or reality” and “untrue” is its opposite. Of course, the Vedic scriptures use a number of methods to communicate the truths pertaining to material and spiritual existence, and those methods are also noted in the Vedic scriptures.
1 This explains why Madhvācārya refers to the Vedas as unauthored—it is the only eternal
set of books co-existing with its eternal author, and the simplest way to explain this is by referring to it as an unauthored book. There was no time when the Vedas didn’t exist just as there was no time when Lord Nārāyaṇa didn’t exist. Lord Nārāyaṇa never wrote the Vedas at any particular point in time ex nihilo. Just as the sunrays come from the sun but they are inseparable—there was no time when the sun existed without its sunrays and there was no time when the sun first existed after which it started emanating its rays—similarly the Supreme Lord and His Vedas are co-eternal. Just as He is uncreated, His eternal breath in the form of the Veda is also uncreated. It is His eternal message to the conditioned souls. Therefore it is not improper to refer to the Vedas as being unauthored in this particular sense.
NOTE. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 6.1.40 notes:
veda-praṇihito dharmo hy adharmas tad-viparyayaḥ
vedo nārāyaṇaḥ sākṣāt svayambhūr iti śuśruma
“That which is prescribed in the Vedas constitutes dharma, the religious principles, and the opposite of that is irreligion. The Vedas are directly the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Nārāyaṇa, and are self-born. This we have heard from Yamarāja.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda has mentioned in his commentary to this verse:
Dharma is not actually manufactured by Nārāyaṇa. As stated in the Vedas, asya mahato bhūtasya niśvasitam etad yad ṛg-vedaḥ: the injunctions of dharma emanate from the breathing of Nārāyaṇa, the supreme living entity. Nārāyaṇa exists eternally and breathes eternally, and therefore dharma, the injunctions of Nārāyaṇa, also exist eternally.1