[Advaita-l] Apaurusheyatva of Vedas.

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Sat, 10 Sep 2011, Omkar Deshpande wrote:

> Just to clarify, I do accept evolutionary theory, and my point was that 
> even if we set it aside, as long as we accept the earth had a finite 
> origin in the past (as people who accept modern science will say they 
> believe independent of any scripture), one will need to be explicit 
> about how the Vedas were first transmitted to the earth.

Why?  All we need to know is the transmission occured.

In popular culture we have many notions about the Rshis but the Mimamsakas 
themselves are silent on how or why the they "saw" mantras.  They did 
that's all.

> This means that there is no fundamental 
> difference between accepting apauruSheyatva or accepting revelation in 
> some other specific way (as done in other traditions/religions) in terms 
> of the amount of faith needed.

In theistic traditions (including "Hindu" ones like nyaya-vaisheshika as 
was pointed out.) _who_ does the revealing is of paramount importance. 
The key difference here is we don't particularly care.

Maybe some primordial molecules combined to form more complex ones which 
began self-replicating which became bacteria which became plants which 
became animals which became mammals which became primates which became men 
who saw mantras.  It's as good an explanation as any.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>