Shastra - as a pramana?

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

On Thu, 22 May 1997, Anand Hudli wrote:

[..]

>     It follows that you cannot conclusively prove that there is a thing
>     such as Brahman, and you are That Brahman. You make a good case in
>     proving that the "I" (Atman) is devoid of all associations and
>     relationships.  But that does not conclusively show that the Atman
>     is the same as the ultimate reality and that the Atman in you is the
>     same as the Atman in me and the Atman in the next person. Is the
>     Atman in me and the Atman in you the same? Are they different?
>     Are they the parts of a bigger Atman? Or are they somehow
>     simultaneously the same and different?  Many such difficult
>     questions assail the  purely logical approach. If you say
>     my Atman is the same as yours, I can use logic to support some other
>     theory, such as, the two are parts of a bigger Atman. Even if the
>     Atman in you is the same as the Atman in me, I can still say they
>     are no doubt identical, but parts of the bigger Atman. This bigger
>     Atman will have many such identical Atman's as parts.
>
>     So what we need here a mahaavaakya from the Vedaanta that tells us
>     conclusively "tat tvam asi, shvetaketo!" (You are That.)
>     Your Atman is the same Brahman as my Atman is. The Atman of
>     everybody is the same. There is no bigger Atman which includes the
>     sum of all these identical Atmans. There is just one Atman and
>     everybody's Atman is It. This Atman is all there is.
>

Anand has brought up an extremely important point here. We need Sruti as
pramANa, to tell us that there is only one Atman and that it is brahman.
In fact, one definition of a mahAvAkya is that it points to the direct
identity of the two seemingly different concepts.

If you read SankarAcArya's extensive works, there is only one reference to
his personal experience of brahman, while still in the body. And even
here, he does not use this experience to prove any point, except to point
out that someone else cannot doubt the experience. Wherever a point is to
be forcefully made, or defended against objections, he resorts only to one
of the six accepted kinds of pramANa - pratyaksha (perception), upamAna
(analogy), anumAna (inference), anupalabdhi (non-cognition), arthApatti
(postulation) and Sabda (scripture).

And if you think about it, the first five are all subject to human error.
For example, one's vision or hearing may be impaired, one might draw
improper analogies, or make invalid inferences, or false postulates. As
far as vedAnta is concerned therefore, Sabda or Sruti serves an important
epistemic role.

Bringing up Sadananda's analogy with science, even in this field, a lot is
taken on authority. Various concepts are assumed to be infallible truths,
because Einstein said so, or because Stephen Hawking says so. Now, I'm
sure these scientists have much keener, sharper powers of thinking and
analysis than me, but there is always the suspicion that they could be
wrong. It is well-known that Einstein was wrong about many things, and yet
that does not take away from his stature as a scientist.

The mImAm.sA/vedAnta notion of Sruti is one that does not ask you to
believe in it because vasishTha or yAjnavalkya or ashTAvakra said so, but
because what is said in the Sruti is true. In this sense, the notion of
apaurusheyatva is an extremely powerful one. Even the Rshis and the gods
have had their failings, but Sruti has to be considered infallible, by
definition. This is more a philosophical attitude towards scripture than
blind belief. That it is not blind belief is also shown by the fact that
canons of interpretation have been developed that do not restrict one to a
literal meaning of Sruti. One important principle of interpretation is
that where a Sruti statement directly contradicts perception (e.g. fire is
cold), there must be a metaphorical meaning behind it. As I've pointed out
before, this is an extremely different attitude towards Sruti as compared
to how other religions treat their holy books.

Vidyasankar

ps. The last statement is just one of comparison; it does not seek to make
any value judgements.