[Advaita-l] Accepting Possibility of Error in Sastras

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

> On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 8:58 PM, Sunil Bhattacharjya <
> sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > When the shruti says that shruti likes paroksha interpretations one has to
> > keep in mind that the reader may have his own limitation in finding the
> > meaning of the shruti statements. In such a situation is it not better to
> > accept the Shruti statements rather than challenging them?
> >
> RV: Pratyaksha and Anumana are also valid pramanas. If they contradict
> shruti, then do we reject them and accept Shruti? If you refer to my quotes
> from Gaudapada, Sankara and Madhusudana, it does not seem to be the case.
> But I would like to know the opinion of the traditional scholars as they
> know best how our acharyas react to reason that contradicts shastras.
> _______________________________________________

These sorts of questions should not really arise. Along with pramANa-s, there is
an accepted mode of the realms in which the pramANa-s operate. One need not
look to the SAstras for things that are amenable to ordinary pratyaksha-anumAna
and one should not attempt to bracket the SAstra-s within the bounds of reason
either. Any contradiction that seemingly arises can be easily explained and in fact,
have already been explained, as and when appropriate.
 
Vidyasankar