[Advaita-l] apauruSheya ?

[Ram Garib]

--- Amuthan Arunkumar R <aparyap at yahoo.co.in> wrote:

> my earlier query was
> that this sort of a 'solution' is possible for the
> scriptures of other religions also. 

Probably not. See my doubts below.

> 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. 

In case of vedas, the premise is that they are
apaurusheya and hence the onus is on the opponent to
prove otherwise. (This is not a flawless argument as
Gangeshopaddhyaya has shown in Tattvachintamani.
However, let us assume it to be flawless for the time
being). 

For the semitic scriptures, the premise is not
apaurusheyatva but revealed status. Therefore, if I
argue for their apaurusheyatva, the onus is on me to
prove their apaurusheyatva. If one the other hand I
consider them "flawless" because of them being
revealed by a "flawless God", I run into a cyclical
argument. Flawlessness of an authored text cannot be
established logically unless I prove through some
other source the flawlessness of the author or
alternatively I accept "flawless-ness" of the author
also on axiomatic grounds. 

> 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. 

I agree with you. There are no easy answers here.

With regards
Ram Garib

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