Unreality of the world: a further analogy

[Anand Hudli]

  Allan Curry wrote:


>It seems most religions base themselves on some kind of scripture which
>gives valid epistemological status to "things that are not perceived
>or inferred" in any other way. Most religions feel quite certain that their
>scripture is correct and the other fellow's scripture is "make believe".
>I had hoped Advaita Vedanta could establish its truth independently of
>Sruti (if that means scripture) and perhaps it can although it seems
>a little doubtful to me at this point.

  Let us take the proposition that there exist things that are neither
  perceivable nor inferable as a basic axiom or assumption. These
  things can only be known then through scriptures. Now, there arises
  the question: which scripture should we follow to know these things?
  All systems based on Vedaanta, not just advaita, unanimously agree
  that this scripture is Shruti, and not any other nonVedic source.
  Call this position A. Some other positions are position B,that all or some
  scriptures are equally authoritative, and position C, that no
  scripture is authoritative with regards to the things that cannot
  be perceived or inferred. I say that position A is no more
  improbable than position B or position C. Just because position
  A *sounds* unreasonable, it does not mean that it is actually so.
  You cannot prove that this position is illogical, because there is
  nothing illogical about only the Shruti's being correct and all
  other scriptures being wrong or only partially correct.

  Position A may be politically incorrect,but not necessarily logically
   incorrect. This coupled with the fact that
  Shruti has, from time immemorial, maintained this reputation of being
  authoritative should be enough for anyone to not reject it as merely
  another collection of religious ideas. As far as I know, no other
  scripture shares the same characteristics as Shruti. In the case of
  other scriptures you can trace their origins to a person or persons,
  but not so for Shruti.


>Allan Curry

 Anand