The Mimaasaka perspective

[un824 at FREENET.VICTORIA.BC.CA]

Namaste,

I said:

>>What about the direct realization of many mystics who lived during times
>>when they could not have encountered the vedas?  Is it the orthodox view of
>>Advaita Vedanta that these people must have been mistaken simply because
>>they had not heard the vedas?
>>
>>If the essential universal truth can be directly realized outside of
>>contact with the vedas then how can the vedas be considered to be "the only
>>source by which Atman = brahman is known"?

to which Vidyasankar replied:

>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.

Medeival Christian mystics had no access to Sanskrit works but seemed to
have direct access to their primordial oneness with the ground of being.
They made no mention of "vAk/sarasvatI, the Goddess of speech/learning",
neither did they  say their revelation contradicted "vAk" for the simple
reason "vAk" did not exist *for them* at that time in Europe.  If the vedas
existed during the lifetime of Meister Eckhardt but he failed to mention
them, must we therefore conclude his "realisation" was bogus?  If he spoke
of similar things but used Latin or German names drawn from a different
tradition, are these considered to be "vedic" because of the similarity?
To put it more simply, is everything true ipso facto "vedic" or is
everything not literally found in the vedas ipso facto not "the truth"?

namaste,

Allan Curry