shabda (was Re: [Advaita-l] 'End' not 'Means')

[S Jayanarayanan]

--- Aditya Varun Chadha <adichad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Where did the scriptures come from?
> 

[..]

> But the
> basis of morality (pertaining to AcharaN) is ultimately based in
> pratyakSa (which happens to be encoded in the scriptures also).

Scriptural WORDS are NEVER "heard" by the ear. The MANIFESTATION of
the WORDS of the Vedas as sound can be heard as Vedic chants.

Scriptural WORDS are NEVER "seen" by the (physical) eye. The
MANIFESTATION of the WORDS of the Vedas as symbols can be seen in
Vedic books.

According to the mImAmsA perspective, all WORDS and MEANINGS (not
only of those of the Vedas) are not in the realm of the physical, but
exist eternally in a metaphysical realm. This is ESTABLISHED, and is
not merely a tall claim. Check out:

http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2004-February/013412.html

A small gist of the arguments:

1) If the words you are viewing in the computer monitor really
existed only in the monitor, the word should be destroyed when the
screen-saver comes on. But the word doesn't get destroyed.

Conclusion: the monitor merely contains *symbolic representations* of
the words are not words themselves. For instance, "2" is not a
number, but only a symbolic representation of a number.

2) If the meanings are understood by you while you're speaking to
someone else is merely with you, then COMMUNICATION can never take
place, for communication presupposes that two people have shared
meaning. If the same meaning can exist with two people separated by a
large distance, how is that meanings are physical entities?

3) Moreover, with a physical entity, it should be possible to point
out to a part of physical space where the word/meaning exists. This
is not possible, hence words/eanings are not physical entities.

-Kartik

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