Apowrusheyatva

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

First, I apologize for my late reply. I realize that this is not good for
discussions, but unfortunately I have been tied up for the past few days.

Vidya wrote:

>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.

While I can _believe_ that some parts of the vedas were "seen" by mantra
drashtas, I can hardly accept that all of it was unauthored and is "flawless"
as the dvaitins claim. I saw the arguments for apaurusheya and was not very
impressed. It seems more of a belief than anything else. As was pointed out by
someone the belief that a text could exist "unauthored" seems very essential.
Moreover, apaurusheyatva does not seem to be completely "provable". One can
only say that a work may be un-authored.

My specific doubt is whether the advaitic school accepts that the idea that
_all_ parts of the shruti are equally acceptable. gauDapaada definitely
dis-agrees and shaMkara agrees with him atleast in the kaarikaa bhaashhya.

For example in the Brihadaranyaka upanishad, in the last chapter the text goes
some thing like this:

"Since she is beautiful he should approach her. If she resists he should try to
win her with presents. Otherwise he should use his hand or a stick, whichever
he likes better, to beat her."

Further in the next few stanzas the text warns people not to have affairs with
the wives of Vedic scholars who know a particular spell. I read the upanishad
very carefully. It does _not_ say having affairs will bring down spiritual
qualities etc, it merely warns not to have affairs with the wives of Vedic
scholars who know a particular spell.

The other passage may be justified by saying that having a son is very
important and hence beating the woman can be justified in some perverse
sense. Unfortunately, it's abundantly clear that the man approaches the woman
because of _desire_ and not for progeny.

This is the case with the BrihdaaraNyaka upanishhad, which is widely revered.
Such examples make me think that even one particular upanishad is not the
composition of a single person. I cannot agree with such verses.

>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 have gone through this and this chapter is quite interesting.

>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.

But, gauDapaada himself explicitly "devalues" the parts of the vedas which do
not agree with him by telling it's for beginners. He quotes a few verses, one
being, "Indra through maya assumes diverse forms". Creation etc (the usual
brahman+maya or otherwise) is for beginners! What is the view of the later
advaitins on such a position? The position is: what is seen by logic+what
is told by scripture alone is correct. The rest are to be discounted. So even
in the vyavahaarika level "devaluation" takes place!

Ramakrishnan.
--
Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said, "The flag is moving." The other
said, "The wind is moving." The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He
told them, "Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving." - The Gateless Gate