[Advaita-l] Scholarly Article on Why Vedas are Valid

[Ramesh Krishnamurthy]

Dear Sri Rajaram,

On 17 October 2011 11:20, Rajaram Venkataramani <rajaramvenk at gmail.com>wrote:

> Dear Shri Ramesh, I respect your faith but your assertion that Vedas
> are the authority in matters related to dharma and moksha is just
> that. You can believe that it is a pramana like pratyaksha. But the
> opponent will say no because Vedas are learnt through pratyaksha and
> interpreted through anumana. Ours is an attempt is to see if we can
> establish Veda as pramana using principles of logic.
>


You are *completely* missing the point.

I never spoke about "faith". I have explained the issue from the
fundamentals of epistemology, which includes a discussion about what a
pramANa (any pramANa) is in the first place. How the veda is transmitted is
a different issue from pramANatvam. One cannot "establish" ANY pramANa using
"logic". One has to assume pramANa-s *before* one can apply any logic.

I have also explained how the mahAvAkya is unlike any other pramANa,
including the rest of the veda.

If you don't want to accept the veda as pramANa, then don't. That is
perfectly fine. If an "opponent" does not want to accept veda as pramANa,
that is his choice. There is no need for us to break our heads trying to
"do" something about it. For that matter, a j~nAnI does not accept ANY
pramANa-s, not even pratyakSha, not even veda. The mahAvAkya dismisses ALL
pramANa-s including itself. But what you are attempting is to accept
pratyakSha and anumAna as pramANa-s and then "establish" the veda as
pramANa. This is just illogical.