[Advaita-l] apauruSheya ?

[Amuthan Arunkumar R]

namo nArAyaNAya!

dear shrI rAm garib,

--- Ram Garib <garib_ram_at_yahoo_dot_co_dot_in>
wrote:
> 
> shankara starts with the "axiom" of apaurusheyatva
> and
> lays down a path that should lead to jivanmukti for
> a
> "qualified aspirant". If a "qualified aspirant"
> follows his path and reaches jivanmukti it
> vindicates
> shankara's axiom by implication, doesn't it?
> 

A - "veda-s are apauruSheya".
B - "the contents of an apauruSheya text are
necessarily true".
C - "jIvanmukti is possible here and now".

(A is true and B is true) implies (C is true). 
(C is true) does not imply (A is true).

in other words, the truth of C is independent of the
truth of A.

A may be a good working hypothesis. IMO, whether A is
true or not is something that cannot be verified (at
least by our 'normal' ways of investigation). but, we
may accept the mImAmsaka's position and adopt the
prima facie view that A is true and put the burden of
proof on those who maintain that A is not true. to
prove that A is not true, we must see if any
authorship can be ascribed to the veda-s based on
internal or external evidences. my earlier query was
that this sort of a 'solution' is possible for the
scriptures of other religions also. if their
authorship has not been proved so far, we cannot
reject their apauruSheyatva on the same grounds on
which we do not reject the apauruSheyatva of the
veda-s. this in turn leads to conflicting views on the
'rightness' of certain actions. granting a freedom of
faith does help, but only adds to the existing
problems. but let's not get into those discussions as
they may not fit into the scope of this mailing list. 

vAsudevaH sarvaM,
aparyAptAmR^itaH.

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