[Advaita-l] Anantaa vai vedaah

[श्रीमल्ललितालालितः]

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On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 07:38, Raghav Kumar <raghavkumar00 at gmail.com> wrote:

> The question was - is "anantA vai vedAH" (taittiriya brAhmaNam 3rd
> aShTakaM)
> only a gunArthavAda or can it be taken literally. I know full well the
> limitation of intellect in arriving at a final conclusion.


If you are not following a single school of thought, then you will never
reach a conclusion.
Moreover, सूर्याचन्द्रमसौ धाता यथापूर्वमकल्पयत् proves creation of specific
things (and not all) in same manner.


> But in favor of
> "Vedas are infinite", the following points come up
>
> 1. The non-mention of "arthavAda"  to refer to anantA vai vedAH ,
> explicitly,  in both sAyaNa bhAShya and bhattabhAskarAcArya-kRta bhAShya is
> noteworthy.
>

They don't tell that it's 'not an arthavAda'  . So, it will prove it
arthavAda. This is according to your nyAya.
Not negating a thing doesn't prove a thing true. And, not all thing is
mentioned by commentators. There are limits. Otherwise after bhAShyam of
sha~Nkara there must not arise any doubt.


> 2. And the phrases "tasmAt sarvavedAdhyayanam ashakyameva",
> "kRtsna-vedAdhyayanasya ashakyatA" in the 2 bhAShyA-s  would not have used
> had there been even hypothetically a possibility (by bharadhvAja) of
> mastering the entire Veda, large though the corpus may be.
>

Even if shAkhAs of three veda-s are numerous, it will be impossible for us
to study all shAkhA-s.
So, there is no need to accept their limitlessness. I've shown other
problems in original thread.


>
> 3. In BS bhAShya on the shAstra-yonitvAt sUtra, we have (quoted already)
>  yadyat-vistarArtham shAstram yasmAt puruShAt sambhavati, yatha vyAkaraNadi
> pANiNyAdeH jneyaikadeshArthamapi, sa tato'pi adhikataravijnAnaH
> kimuvaktavyam aneka-shAkhAbhinnasya RgvedAdeH ...
> "whatever shAstra is composed by a given person, even in the case of a
> particular branch of knowledge such as grammar by pANiNi, we see that (on
> the analogy of pANiNi) he would be endowed with much more knwoledge than
> what was set forth/manifested." (so what to speak of sarvajna-Ishvara, this
> kaimUtika-nyAya is presented and in the next line in bhAShya, the word
> 'aprayatnena' precludes the extension of the analogy to mean 'created' or
> 'composed'.)
> The word adhikatara-vijnAna (one endowed with **more** knowledge) is
> noteworthy, indicating that Ishvara has not exhausted all the knowledge
> which inseparably exists/rests in Him, in manifesting (not amounting to
> freshly creating) the Vedas as we know them. (The word 'aprayatnena'
> precludes the extension of the analogy to mean 'created' or 'composed'.)


See original thread.


> To
> say that exactly the same finite set of mantras are manifested in every
> kalpa while some other mantras are never "breathed" out and are permanently
> resident in Ishvara, seems a little far-fetched.
>

We say that whole veda is given to brahmA and he gives different shAkhA-s to
R^iShis.
We have never said that un-breathed  veda-s even exist.


> 4. It was suggested by Sri Shyamji that LYV seems to lend some credence to
> this proposition that the names of Rishis like yAjnavalkya and King Janaka
> are class appellations (like 'cow-ness' etc., it may be acceptable to look
> at the different Janakas manifested in different kalpas to together
> constitute a class possessing 'janakatvam') and different jIvas enact a
> similar (not necessarily identical) script in each kalpa.


LYV uses stories to convey it's idea.
Moreover, janakatvam is not a jAtI, because manuShyatvam is enough to do all
work.

  The possibility of a change in the name of
> these adhikArika puruSa-s was also pointed out and this also gels with the
> idea that "there is no need to insist on EXACTLY the same Veda mantras (to
> the letter) repeating over and over again like a gramaphone record.


How ?
Even now people repeat veda-s as 'gramophone record'. Any change in that is
not accepted.


> All such changes in the manifested
> portion of the Veda does not affect the fact the sum total of the infinite
> Veda which rests inseparable from Ishvara and that totality of the Veda is
> unchanging and nitya.
>

Any change in veda expects AyAsa. So, it will be pauruSheya.
Even if a portion is changed, the whole is changed.
Leave nityatvam. mImAMsakas accept that. But, a person talking Ishvara as
origin of veda must know that they are not nitya. Anyway they are made
pauruSheya by your assumptions.


>
> The above ideas seem quite plausible, if only because there is no other way
> to explain the first descent of the Veda mantras on to the Earth through
> the
> pure minds of the mantra-dRShTAraH.


mImAMsakas and vedAntins, both say that veda-s are coming from
anAdi-paramparA. No one accepts any R^iShi as starting point. If you think
so, you are not talking according to mImAMsA or vedAnta. I leave it on you
to resolve.


> It is my subjective opinion that their
> total lack of ahamkAra and utter selflessness not to speak of mastery of
> Yoga renders it useless to argue that "if the mantras were revealed in the
> minds of some human being at some in time in history after the earth came
> into being, the Vedas become paurusheya." Not necessarily.
> If we insist that the Guru-Shishya karNa-paramparA did not 'start' at some
> distant historical time, it is in obvious conflict with the evidence from
> pratyakSha and anumAna that the Earth came in to being at some definite
> point in time.
>

According to mImAMsakas, it didn't start at specific time.
Vedantin's accept their start at sR^iShTi or kalpArambha, etc.
We don't accept Darwin's theory or modern science's theory of creation.
If you accept then don't talk of veda-s as pramANa, apauruSheyatva, Ishvara,
etc. It will be impossible to prove.


>
> The overall interest in this question is not at all to do any historical
> research.  Rather, its because we ought not to rigidly hold on to any idea
> which clashes with other pramANa-s in view of the need to maintain the
> mutual non-contradiction between them - pramANAntara abAdhitatvam.


I know it.
But, as you check every assumption of mImAMsaka-s, vedAntin-s, we expect you
to check every assumption of theories which you have borrowed from anywhere
else, including pratyakSha, anumAna, science, etc.


> To say
> that the mantradRShTR mentioned in the Veda themselves were not those who
> actually were the first to mediate the descent of these mantras on Earth
> (since these mantras preceded history), but that there were others whose
> names are unknown is also far-fetched but not disprovable.
>

You are free to accept them as real, but only after leaving apauruSheyatva,
Ishvara, dharma, etc.


>
> Thank you everyone for your clarifications. I would be the first one to
> admit that it may not be possible to arrive a definite conclusion which
> satisfies everyone.


That's because we lack study according to single school.
We also fail to check where we are mixing other theories without checking.


>
> P.S. Sri Shyam ji also quoted this translation presumably from
> LYV,indicative of a gradual manifestation of the planet earth, life etc.,
> The Yogi replied: "There was a time when for eleven thousand years, this
> earth was one (nebulous) mass of dust filled with stones but without
> mountains, trees or grass even appearing in it for a long time. In one
> Chatur-Yuga (four yugas), this earth was one vast forest...."
>

We never heard it from any purANa, etc.
LYV is not a pramANa as veda, purANa, etc.


>
> In favor of the opposite idea that the Vedas are a fixed and finite set of
> mantras which undergo no change from kalpa to kalpa, one could argue that
> the intent in showing the muShTika and comparing them to the three hills,
> itself amounts to arthavAda being intended merely to disincentivize
> bhAradhvAja maharshi from pursuing further study.


True.


> So 'anantAh' can be taken
> by some as arthavAda. Also the example itself if taken literally, still
> technically implies, only an enormous but finite relation between the
> muShTika and the 3 hills, Besides the finite limit on the number of
> recensions too is to be taken into account.


True.