[Advaita-l] वेदानाम् अपौरुषेयत्वम् - ब्रह्मलीन् करपात्री स्वामीजी

[Venkatraghavan S]

Thank you for sharing this Sriram ji. There is a slight difference in the
apauruSheyatva of the Vedas according to pUrva mImAmsa and the
apauruSheyatva of Veda according to advaita.

In the case of pUrvamImAmsa, no creation is admitted for the veda. The
world has always been as it is today - there is no pralaya in pUrva
mImAmsa. Today, the Vedas are seen to be transmitted in an unbroken
sequence of teacher-student teaching, with no living memory of a creator,
therefore, it must have existed so from time immemorial. Thus,
apauruSheyatva in pUrva mImAmsa means having no creation.

In advaita, the vivaraNa prasthAna says that Brahman is the vivarta upAdAna
kAraNa for the veda (the bhAmati says Brahman is veda kartA), and that
during every kalpa, the samskAra of the veda located in Brahman is the
basis for the manifestation of the veda in the next kalpa. The same
sequence of sounds is preserved in every kalpa. However, Brahman is not the
creator of the Veda, he is the material cause. In the vivaraNa prasthAna,
apauruSheyatva means having no creator.

The hetu for apauruSheyatva is the same as pUrva mImamsa - there is no
memory of a creator of Vedas in an unbroken sequence of vedic learning.

The validity of the Vedas in advaita (like pUrva mImamsa) is on the basis
of svatah prAmANya - that every cognition is intrinsically valid. The
invalidity of any shabda is on the basis of the faults of the creator. As
the Vedas have no creator, there are no external grounds to invalidate it.
Thus apauruSheyatva is not the reason for the validity of the Vedas, but
for the negation of its invalidity.

The acceptability of this logic essentially comes down to whether one
insists upon the scientific method of enquiry or not - in the scientific
method, for a hypothesis to be considered a testable theory, it must be
falsifiable.

apauruSheyatva is not falsifiable, because if one were to cite a plausible
point of origin for the Veda - the creation of the earth, appearance of
life, arrival of humans as a species or the creation of language as
necessary beginning points, all of them are refuted by the advaitin, citing
that such instances are not the beginning, because the Vedas existed in
prior rounds of creation. The existence of previous rounds of creation is
another non-falsifiable hypothesis. Thus, it falls outside the purview of
what is classifiable as a scientific hypothesis.

Notwithstanding this, the very lack of non-falsifiability is a strength for
svatah prAmANya vAdins, because there is nothing to falsify the intrinsic
validity of the logic for apauruSheyatva.

Regards,
Venkatraghavan

On Fri, 7 Jun 2019, 13:14 Venkata sriram P via Advaita-l, <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste,
>
> Those who have doubts on 'apaurusheyatva' of shruti, may pursue & reflect
> on the arguments
> by Brahmaleen Karapatri Swamiji.
>
> Given below is the link.  It is in sanskrit with hindi translation vide
> page nos. 215 to 225.
>
> ..............
> https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.348727/page/n245
> ...............
>
> rgs,
> sriram
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