[Advaita-l] Sabda Pramana of Mimamsa

[ShankaraBharadwaj Khandavalli]

Namaste Raghav ji,

Answer to #1 is in #2. Both portions of Sri Suktam are in the RV Khila. Though the second part is not chanted, it is not separated out in RV itself - it is part of Sri Suktam only. However as it is chanted, the question arises as of what part is merely chanted as brahmana, and what part is applied as mantra for homa. For this the best is to run through a complete Sri Sukta homam. 


To take another example, aruna pAtha of Taittireeya Aranyaka has both brAhmana and Aranyaka portions - when an Aruna homa is done, parts of sentence are applied for homa using svAhakAra, and part are merely chanted as brAhmaNa. And some parts of brAhmana do not even have to be chanted - they are instructions and yajamAni should just do them. 

There is no question of portions falling out of Sabda pramANa of mImamsa - just that some portions should be treated as mantra and some portion as brAhmaNa. 

Shankar


________________________________
From: Raghav Kumar <raghavkumar00 at gmail.com>
To: ShankaraBharadwaj Khandavalli <shankarabharadwaj at yahoo.com>; A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 18, 2011 2:31 AM
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Sabda Pramana of Mimamsa


Namaste SrI Shankar ji
 
What you have written is quite interesting. Just to to clarify - 
 
In your revised understanding, within each passage/sUkta/adhyAya (located be it in either the mantra-samhita, brAhmaNa, Aranyaka etc of each Veda),  we could have some portions containing mantra-s plus the passages explaining the use of those mantra-s in karma  which together constitute mImAmsa's sabda pramANa. while other portions/vAkya-s within the same section are only to provide context and sangatIs and stuti (such passages not being sabda pramANa per se). Is this right ?
 
My questions are - in your revised understanding, 
 
1. how does mImAmsA's sabda pramANa parse a given upaniShad or a sUktaM (maybe you could take a small exampe) ?
 
2.  In the SrI sUktaM, consider the portion from 
 
A).  "hiraNyavarNAM hariNIM suvarNa rajatasrajAM, chandrAm hiraNmayIM lakShmIm jAtavedo ma Avaha    ......yasyAM hiraNyam prabhUtam gAvo dAsyo'ashvAN, vindeyaM puruShAnahaM" - this seems to be the mantra-portion.   
and then compare with the 
 
B) The uttara-bhAga  giving details of the practice/use of the mantra and also stuti of Devi with some almost-purANic sounding stuti like "SrI rangadhAmeshvarIM" and "sarva-mangala-mAngalye-shive-sarvArtha-sAdhike" etc., .starting with "yah shuchiH prayato bhUtva yuhuyAd AjyamanvahaM , shriyaH panchadasharcarcam ca shrI kAmaH satatam japet" 
(On who purifies himself and offers Ajyam to Agni etc....) and ending with "santatamRcA vashat-kRtyaM sandhattam sandhIyate prajayA pashubhiH"

Very often , we don;t even hear the latter part being recited, although the latter portion too  has intonations (anudAtta, udAtta, svarita). Do both these portions fall within mImAmsA's sabda-pramANa or are there some vAkya-s within the above 2 portions which don't fall within the purview of mImAmsa's sabda pramANa ?
 
Also could you post the link to the thread discussed earlier ?
 
Regards
Raghav
 
On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 3:00 AM, ShankaraBharadwaj Khandavalli <shankarabharadwaj at yahoo.com> wrote:

Revisiting this thread, having done some learning. My reading that Mimamsa's sabda pramana covers only the Brahmana part and not Aranyaka/Upanishad was incorrect. It is also incorrect to put all non-samhita portions into Brahmana.
>
>Mimamsa's analysis is not at the book level but at a micro level. The mantra/brahmana difference is applicable to each vAkya of the Veda, and is not applicable at a text/section level. Thus, Samhita has Mantra and Brahmana portions, Brahmana has Mantra and Brahmana portions, and Aranyaka has Mantra and Brahmana portions.
>
>Shankar
>
>
>
>[Advaita-l] How to read puranasJaldhar H. Vyas jaldhar at braincells.com
>Thu Jun  9 23:17:28 CDT 2011
>________________________________
>
>On Mon, 23 May 2011, ShankaraBharadwaj Khandavalli wrote: >Mimamsa's division does not apply even to the entire Sruti - it is only for >Samhita and Brahmana. Their first division of Veda is into two parts - the >Mantra (Samhita) and Brahmana. > Brahmana is in its widest sense any part of shruti which is not mantra.
>Most of the historically earliest upanishads are part of a brahmana.  For
>instance brhadaranyaka (note the name) is the concluding parts of the
>shatapatha brahmana.  In fact its chapters are called brahmanas.
>Taittireyopanishad is the concluding part of the Taittireya Aranyaka which
>itself is the concluding part of the Taittireya Brahmana and so on.
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