[Advaita-l] Meaning required for a shloka on 'arthavAdaH'

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Sorry for the delayed response, but I think the wording of the Sloka presumes
the pUrva mImAmsA thinking on how the veda acts as pramANa. Injunctions to
do a particular act or many acts are considered the primary new knowledge
given in the veda. These are not established by any other means of gaining
knowledge, like pratyaksha, anumAna etc. Thus, the mImAMsaka looks for
verb endings such as yajeta, juhuyAt, kurushva, kurudhvam etc. to establish
the primary intent of the veda. Any sentence with a verb used in a non-
injunctive sense is considered subsidiary to injunctions.


virodha (opposition) in the verse would therefore indicate opposition with some
other pramANa. I take guNavAda as broadly indicating "figure of speech" (not
just metaphor) and not necessarily as pertaining to any specific quality of a
thing. Sentences intending praise (stuti) would certainly fall under guNavAda.


The only possible interpretation for "taddhAnAt (tat hAnAt)" seems to be this.
When there is neither opposition to other pramANas, nor reiteration (anuvAda)
of what has already been established (avadhArita) otherwise, then the sentence
is a description of things as they are (bhuta-artha). The srict mImAMsaka holds
that such a statement in the veda would be superfluous, unless it impels the

listener to an activity, but the vedAntin would counter-argue that not every
statement of fact need imply an action on anybody's part. For the mImAMsaka,
even an apparently simple statement of fact such as "the cow produces milk"
would have to subserve one action or the other, depending on the context of
where it occurs, such as a more generic injunction like "tend the cow if you
want milk" or a more specific one such as "go milk the cow now".

 

Regards,

Vidyasankar

 
> Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 11:57:16 +0530
> From: v.subrahmanian at gmail.com
> To: advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
> Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Meaning required for a shloka on 'arthavAdaH'
> 
> Thank you Vidyashankar ji for the response. I am able to get the three
> types of arthavAda. However, how do we get the full meaning of the verse,
> with its anvaya, etc. What is the 'virodha' here that gives rise to the
> first type: guNa vAda (I suppose this is what is also known as
> 'stutyarthavAda')? What does 'tat hAnAt' mean in the third type? Is this
> shloka of the mImAmsaka-s?
> 
> Regards,
> subrahmanian.v
> 
 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft’s powerful SPAM protection.
http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/210850552/direct/01/