[Advaita-l] Apaurusheyatva of Veda

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

Dear Shree Sadananda,

I agree with you that one should have shraddha in the Vedas and the
acharyas. Though intelligent debates within the framework of Vedas
are encouraged in our traditions, Lord Krishna also says that one who does
not have shraddha will not be happy. I am not calling for faith because it
is unfair to expect a person who has no direct experience of the greatness
of the vaidhika dharma to have faith when it is not complete even for those
who have such experiences. The need for logic comes from the fact that we
need to distinguish vaidhika dharma from avaidhika dharma for those those
who have interest in the Vedas but are not necessarily followers of vaidhika
dharma in any shape or form.

I am not arguing that the shruti mantras are the same because they were
protected meticulously, which is well known and accepted. My argument is
that the rishis separated by time and space, with no known contact between
each other, have come up with the same mantras. A logical inference based on
these instances is that the mantras are independent of the persons (rishis)
- hence apaureshya.

I dont think mere similarity of ideas is a proof of apureshyatva because we
have many instances of it in secular and religious fields but are clearly
paureshya. I earlier quotes the example of Calculus bneing discovered by
Newton and Leibnitz. The law of karma, for example, finds echo in the
statements of Socrates--"Do to other as thou wouldst they should do to thee,
and do to none other but as thou wouldst be done to". This finds its echo in
New Testament, Talmud, Koran, Analects of Confucius and sophisticated law of
karma propounded by Buddhists and Jains. It can be attributed to exchange of
ideas between religio-philosophical schools or the human brain arriving at
the same conclusions independently. But we do not two humans arriving at the
same sound pattern independently. Even in musical octaves, there are
differences between different cultures. This is the uniqueness of some of
the shruti mantras among all of the knowledge in human realm.

Unless one can point out the flaws in my logic, one has to accept my
conclusion that Vedas are apaureshya as true as long as one accepts logic as
a means of knowledge.

Best Regards
Rajaram Venkataramani



On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 4:40 PM, kuntimaddi sadananda <
kuntimaddisada at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Shree Rajaram - PraNAms
>
> Actually there is no logical error in your statements - other than the fact
> that the statements do not prove the apurusheyatva of the Vedas. They
> only establish the consistency and preservation of the Vedas within the
> relative time frame that has been recorded, the slokas or mantras that were
> passed on by the word of the mouth via guruparampara or by Veda adhyayanam,
> and which Veda vyaasa collected and codified into four volumes.
>
> Now let me ask you whether your statements categorically establish without
> a question that the Vedas are apourusheyam and we do not have to relay on
> faith that they are? If you honestly can answer yes, my hats off to you. If
> you say not really, then we are back to the faith as the primary base.  Once
> faith becomes the basis, logic becomes irrelavent for the apourusheyatvam
> aspect.
>
>
>
> Hari Om!
> Sadananda
>
>
>
> --- On Sun, 9/4/11, Rajaram Venkataramani <rajaramvenk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> From: Rajaram Venkataramani <rajaramvenk at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Apaurusheyatva of Veda
> To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> Date: Sunday, September 4, 2011, 11:20 AM
>
>
> Dear Sri Sadananda, could you please point out the logical error in my
> proof? I don't see it. I agree with the need to go beyond logic but
> the attempt is to establish only using objective data and logic.
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