Question on apowrusheyatva

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Okay, here I am on familiar territory! The standard position on the Vedas
is that they are eternal and unauthored. This is formulated most strongly
in the system of pUrva mImAm.sA (earlier exegesis). From an impartial
standpoint, it is very clear that already by the time the rules of this
exegesis were written down, the Vedas were already ancient texts in an
archaic language. No human authors could be traced for the whole collection,
although every vedic hymn is associated with a r.shi (seer). These r,shis
are supposed to have "seen" the Vedas as it was revealed to them, and are
therefore not regarded as the actual authors of their hymns. However, this
has not prevented the earliest redactors of the Vedas from classifying the
material according to r.shi. For example, entire maNDalas of the r.gveda
are classed with vasishTha, or viSvAmitra or ghr.tsamada and so on.

In the pUrva mImAm.sA system, the notion of "apaurusheya" is carried to
such an extent that it is denied that the Vedas were created by God. This
school is able to maintain such a position, inspite of upanishadic statements
like "yo vai vedAm.Sca prahiNoti tasmai" - He who teaches him the vedas -
because they maintain that the upanishads are essentially arthavAda (commentary
or explanation of meaning/intent), and that the purpose of such statements
is to glorify either the sacrificer or the devatA to whom the sacrifice is
dedicated. These statements are not supposed to have any truth value beyond
that.

It is also interesting to note that pUrva mImAm.sA also denies a Creator God.
The SlokavArttikA by kumAriLa bhaTTa is very remarkable in this respect. Seen
in this light, gauDapAda's description of creation as something taught as
illustrations for beginners, is entirely consistent with the more orthodox
brAhminical tradition of interpreting the vedas.

Classical advaita more or less accepts the pUrva mImAm.sA position on most
issues, except on their principle of analyzing the upanishads and brAhmaNas
as "arthavAda". Surprisingly enough, one of Sankara's major arguments against
pUrva mImAm.sA is that their denial of a Creator God is invalid according
to their own principles. Not that Sankara upholds a Creator himself, because
ultimately there is no use in talking of creation. So, he accepts their
description of apaurusheyatvam, but points out that by their own principles,
they cannot deny the proposition that ISvara is the author of the Vedas. The
Sankara digvijayam makes much of this criticism, by the way.

I am not aware that advaita takes a rigid position one way or the other
regarding apaurusheyatvam. Of course, the mImAm.sA arguments against human
authors are accepted in toto. This is necessary, because of the high value
attached to Sruti in advaita. But as for whether ISvara is the author of the
Vedas or not, the position tends to be ambivalent. Both Chandrasekhara
Bharati Swami and Abhinava Vidyatirtha Swami of Sringeri seem to have used
words that indicate that the Vedas "inhere" in ISvara always and that is how
they are retrieved "parAntakAle" - at the time of cosmic dissolution. Now,
"inhere" can be interpreted two ways. ISvara can either be treated as the
author of the Vedas or as the one who protects them. The word "inhere" has
been used purposely, I suspect, by Jnanananda Bharati, the translator.

The final position however, is that even Sruti is ultimately only a
superimposition on Brahman. In fact, this has caused a lot of debate with other
schools of vedAnta, who find fault with advaita for devaluing the status of
the Vedas. The only problem, however, is that even talking of apaurusheyatvam
of the Vedas can only be done at the relative level, and is of no consequence
at the paramArtha level.

Vidya