[Advaita-l] Mantra, Brahmana, Mimamsa and Vedanta (was RE: How to read puranas)

[Balasubramanian Ramakrishnan]

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 2:09 PM, ShankaraBharadwaj Khandavalli
<shankarabharadwaj at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Namaste,
>
> "The distinction between saMhitA and brAhmaNa is well established even prior to
> any pUrva mImAMsA analysis or interpretation of the veda texts."
>
> Yes, not just samhita and brAhmaNa but even araNyaka was a well known
> classification by the time mImAMsa came, so my point is there is no reason for
> it to not explicitly use the classification given by sruti itself, unless *it
> does not consider that portion for its analysis as the apourusheya pramANa*. I
> do not know of any exclusive araNyaka portion (that does not overlap with
> brAhmaNa/samhita) used by mImAMsa in the sense of apourusheya.
>
>
> "Mantra (or saMhitA) vs. brAhmaNa (and/or AraNyaka) are content descriptors and
> should be clearly distinguished from the pUrva mImAMsA categories of vidhi and
> arthavAda. There can be arthavAda in both the mantra portions and the brAhmaNa
> or the AraNyaka portions. And vidhi-s are rarely found in the mantra portions of
> the veda. They are more often found in the brAhmaNa or AraNyaka portions."
>
> Agreed. I did not mean to classify samhita-brahmana-aranyaka as
> mantra-vidhi/nishedha-arthavAda.
>
>
> "The sUrya namaskAra is a smArta karmA, not Srauta karmA."
>
> Yes, and that is the point. Srauta karma has authority in samhita, brAhmaNa or
> srauta sUtras. I am not aware of any srauta karma that derives authority from
> Aranyaka portion alone. There are several smArta rituals that take namesake

The pravragya is in the AraNyaka (mantra and brAhmaNa). As is the
aruNa-ketuka chayana.

Rama