“Therefore if the evidence is there in the statement of Vedas, that is the proof. Śabda-pramāṇa. There are three kinds of evidences. Pratyaksa, direct sense perception, and sabda-pramana, evidence from the Vedic statement, and anumana, aitihya, historical or hypothesis. So out of all evidences, the evidence which is called, derived from Vedic statement, that is accepted as most authoritative.” (Lecture on Bhagavad-gita 2.20-25 — Seattle, October 14, 1968)

“There are three kinds of evidences. Out of that, śruti-pramāṇa, evidence from higher authorities, that is the first-class evidence. What are those evidence? Pratyaksa, aitihya and sruti. Pratyaksa means direct perception. Direct perception, that is evidence. People with poor fund of knowledge, they want direct perception of everything. That is not possible. Direct perception of everything is not possible. Therefore aitihya. Aitihya means historical, historical, parampara, hearing, traditional. And the next first-class evidence is sruti. Sruti means to hear from the authority. That is sruti. Just like the example we have several times cited here that the evidence ‘Who is my father?’ that evidence is to hear from my mother. That’s all. There is no other evidence. The mother says that ‘This is your father. He is your father.’ This is sruti, hearing from the mother, authority. And we have no other authority to understand father. Similarly, we have to understand our supreme father from the sruti mother, Vedas mother, mother Vedic mother. We have to accept Vedas as mother, sruti.” (Lecture on Sri Chaitanya-caritamrta, Madhya-lila 20.318-329 — New York, December 23, 1966)