The Mimaasaka perspective

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

> What about the direct realization of many mystics who lived during times
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> when they could not have encountered the vedas?  Is it the orthodox view of
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> Advaita Vedanta that these people must have been mistaken simply because
> they had not heard the vedas?

No. The orthodox view is that there never was a time when the vedas did
not exist. The vedas are unauthored, eternal and coeval with creation. In
fact, the vedas are seen as a kind of blue-print according to which
creation proceeds. This position is taken by non-advaitins also, and so it
holds irrespective of whether creation is seen as real or otherwise. The
words of the vedas are often described as constituting the body of divine
vAk/sarasvatI, the Goddess of speech/learning. Very interesting analyses
of this theological position, and a comparison with the Rabbinic Judaic
position can be found in Barbara Holdredge's *Veda and Torah*, published
by SUNY Albany, I believe.

More importantly for our purposes, we need to ask how is it that the vedas
are known. After all, the orthodox view is that they were not composed by
human beings, and they were not composed by a Creator God. kumArila
bhaTTa, the foremost mImAmsA writer, goes to great lengths to disprove all
notions of a Creator God, which might be surprising for an "orthodox"
author. Advaitins, and other kinds of vedAntins, on the other hand, say
that it is through the direct mystical realization that the vedas are
revealed to mankind. Advaitins are closer to the mImAmsakas in denying
authorship even to a Creator God, but other vedAntins are willing to
accept the vedas as compositions of their Creator God, most often
nArAyaNa.

In any case, the vedic seers directly "see" the vedas, and do not
compose them. I suspect that if the earliest Buddhists had not been so
vehemently firm about rejecting the authority of the vedas, the words of
the Buddha might themselves have been accepted as part of revelation. That
he was not born a brAhmaNa would not have stood in the way. After all,
various upanishads show that views taught by kshatriyas were accepted, and
that brAhmaNas did not hesitate to learn from non-brAhmaNas. However, the
Buddhists not only rejected the vedas, but also insisted that what the
Buddha said was something totally new, and that it was totally his own.
This made the buddhavacana the composition of a human being, which would
never have been acceptable to any of the orthodox thinkers.

In any case, the orthodox Indian theological position fully accepts the
direct realization of mystics, and puts it on a pedestal, instead of
creating a situation where the direct mystical realization flouts a fixed
orthodox scripture. Where it demurs is when the mystic, or his followers,
claim to have composed something new, and totally his own. This position
about the mechanism of knowing the vedas also needs to be combined with a
reticence to accept any and every claim of mystical realization. Such
reticence is to be expected in a tradition that is at least a few millenia
old now, as far as exegesis of the scriptural texts is concerned.

Vidyasankar