[Advaita-l] Vedas are not apauresheya according to the Vedas ?

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

> There can be different reasons why one accepts (or rejects) vedas as a pramana but all reasons are not equally well thought through. 
> 
> If pauresheya vedas are a pramana, then we can as well accept jesus or mohammad as rishis and give their teaching equal weight as you'd to the vedas. 

This is a fundamental point of departure. I see no reason for any Hindu to accept Jesus or Mohammad or anyone else on an equal par with Sruti. There is no reason why the biblical Gospels or the Quran should be pramANa for those who are not Christians or Muslims. The most that a Hindu could do is to take these as yet more smRti-s within the human legacy. However, it would be a rather trivial exercise to show fundamental contradictions of large parts of these texts with Sruti and to say that they are not acceptable to SishTa-s. What can be accepted by someone in a vaidika traditon is only that portion of the Bible or the Quran that does not contradict the veda. There is a reason why Christianity and Islam have existed in India almost since their birth, yet no vaidika traditional thinker of any sampradAya has felt any need to do as you claim.
 
It seems to me you are attempting a sort of universal argument about *our* scripture that you would expect every single human being to accept, including Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and others. I think that is an impossible exercise. 
 
So, I suppose a fundamental issue is this. Are you interested in elucidating veda apaurusheyatva in order to convince the general Hindu on the street or are you interested in it for the sake of arguing with Christians and Muslims who argue for the exclusive claim to truth in their own respective texts? If the latter, then there are many other means to do it, instead of going after apaurusheyatva of the veda.
 
> 
> But even a Sankara established siddhanta on the basis of shruti and smrti. And even smrti is not valid if it contradicts shruti because the latter is apauresheya and hence pramana. Otherwise, there is no difference between the two
> 

Within the Astika milieu, the authority of smRti is accepted as secondary to that of Sruti both by those who accept apaurusheyatva of Sruti and by those who reject apaurusheyatva of Sruti. The only other criterion for accepting a given smRti as a pramANa would be to hold that the said smRti is accepted by SishTa-s, but in an indirect way, this again makes its authority dependent on that of Sruti, because a SishTa, by definition, already holds that Sruti is pramANa. So again, apaurusheyatva is not an invariable prerequisite for accepting smRti pramANa. 
 
Regards,
Vidyasankar
  
> Therefore, Shruti, if apauresheya, holds a unique place for all schools of thought.
> Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vidyasankar Sundaresan <svidyasankar at hotmail.com>
> Sender: advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
> Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2013 08:48:58 
> To: Advaita List<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> Reply-To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
> <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Vedas are not apauresheya according to the Vedas ?
> 
> 
> 
> No, I am trying to show you how acceptance of veda prAmANya need not be contingent upon an
> acceptance of veda apaurusheyatva. This is especially so for the general person, which may not
> be particularly committed to a specific line of traditional thinking.
> 
> Stepping outside of the Sankara bhAshya for a second, all that is required for taking the veda as
> pramANa is to accept that Rshi-s lived and transmitted some portion of the veda to their immediate
> disciples, which then has come down to us today in a tradition. This minimum level of acceptance
> of the existence of the Rshi-s is enough to say that the veda is pramANa for someone calling himself
> or herself a Hindu in today's world. Stepping back into the bhAshya and the advaita vedAnta tradition,
> we can talk about the special powers of the Rshi-s and other things, but all that is icing on the cake,
> so to speak.
> 
> Whether the Rshi-s composed these themselves or whether they got it from ISvara, who composed
> it first, or whether the Rshi-s just intuited an unauthored veda in their meditative states, none of this
> needs to matter *as far as accepting the prAmANya of the veda* is concerned. In other words, one
> need not commit to an apaurusheya vs. not-apaurusheya stance to accept the veda as a valid source
> of knowledge. That is how both a naiyyyAyika and a mImAMsaka can accept the same veda as pramANa.
> The typical nyAya stance about the veda being authored by ISvara is not a necessary condition for the
> naiyyAyika to accept veda prAmANya. The typical mImAMsA stance about veda apaurusheyatva is not
> a necessary condition for the mImAMsaka to accept veda prAmANya. In both cases, an acceptance of
> veda prAmANya comes first, all these mutual disagreements about apaurusheyatva vs. ISvara as 
> author come later.
> 
> That is how, a vedAntin, especially an advaitin, can accomodate both views in different ways. We have
> been through all this before on this list, so I won't repeat myself now.
> 
> Regards,
> Vidyasankar
> 
> 
> > To: advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
> > From: rajaramvenk at gmail.com
> > Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2013 08:39:39 +0000
> > Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Vedas are not apauresheya according to the Vedas ?
> > 
> > It is a good argument but not without fault I'm afraid. You have to prima-facie believe that historical rishis had special power as a result of which cycle after cycle, they perceive the same mantras and bring them to competent people. But mimamsakas have already argued against reliance on even great men and for that matter a sarvajna purusha. 
> > 
> > They have taken pains to show that the flow of knowledge is an invariable constant. And speech only reveals a word that exists, though not as an entity, before being spoken. The mimamsa position is one that Sankara also accepts and rishis, due to special powers, discover them. 
> > 
> > If flow of knowledge in veda mantras is a result of pratyaksha, then aham brahmasmi will be an articulation of perception by rishis of entities that are by definition beyond perception for anyone - the self and brahman. 
> > Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Vidyasankar Sundaresan <svidyasankar at hotmail.com>
> > Sender: advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
> > Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2013 14:24:03 
> > To: Advaita List<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> > Reply-To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
> > <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> > Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Vedas are not apauresheya according to the Vedas ?
> > 
> > 
> 
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