[Advaita-l] Re: [advaitin] Re: Origin of vedas

[Ramesh Krishnamurthy]

On 25/07/06, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian
<rama.balasubramanian at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I am not sure if I understand the question right. The itihaasa-puraaNa
> mentioned in the veda passage refers to the a-historical legends and
> stories in the veda itself. That is as per shankara.
>
> If you are asking about the bhArata, viShNu puraaNa, etc., that is
> different from Bhaskars original question. Yes, Hanuman jumped across
> the sea,  it's a historical incident, what's the problem with that? In
> any case, according to the suutra bhaashya, the itihaasas and puraaNas
> are all acual incidents (unless it is obvious or there is some other
> reason to interpret the story as an illustration).

Well, initially I was a bit confused about what you meant by
itihAsa-purANa referred to *in* the upaniShad. Anyway that is clear
now.

But my question was about itihAsa-purANa as we normally understand
these terms i.e. the  mahabhArata, bhAgavatam, etc.

On issues such as SrI hanumAn jumping across the sea or the gigantic
proportions of kumbhakarNa, pratyaxa-anumAna would suggest that such
things are impossible. Neither do such incidents seem to have anything
to do with dharma or moxa, where the SAstra-s are supreme. So why
should they be interpreted as actual incidents?

Ramesh