The Mimaasaka perspective

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

On Sat, 27 Sep 1997 un824 at freenet.victoria.bc.ca wrote:

> Medeival Christian mystics had no access to Sanskrit works but seemed to
> have direct access to their primordial oneness with the ground of being.
> They made no mention of "vAk/sarasvatI, the Goddess of speech/learning",
> neither did they  say their revelation contradicted "vAk" for the simple
> reason "vAk" did not exist *for them* at that time in Europe.  If the vedas

vAk should be seen in a general sense, and is not restricted to the
Sanskrit language. For that matter, Skt grammarians distinguish between
the language of the vedas (called chandas) and classical Sanskrit of
literature (bhAshA).

> existed during the lifetime of Meister Eckhardt but he failed to mention
> them, must we therefore conclude his "realisation" was bogus?  If he spoke
> of similar things but used Latin or German names drawn from a different
> tradition, are these considered to be "vedic" because of the similarity?
> To put it more simply, is everything true ipso facto "vedic" or is
> everything not literally found in the vedas ipso facto not "the truth"?

I'm not sure what the traditional take on this would be, but the mImAmsA
interpretations spend a great deal of attention to language, so there just
might be some leads in their texts. More simply, the thumb rule regarding
smrti can be followed. The words of smrti are accepted as valid if they do
not contradict the Sruti (vedas). In practice, this gives enormous
flexibility for various traditions, even within Indian communities. So,
someone like Plotinus or Eckhardt would be seen as not contradicting the
vedas, and therefore acceptable. As you may be aware, people like
Radhakrishnan have already pointed out the similarities.

Vidyasankar