[Advaita-l] Regarding the discussion"Do the vedas say that Brahman is not the ultimate reality of the world"

[Sundaresan, Vidyasankar (GE Infra, Water)]

>But the Vedas even though at the end contain the vedanta portion
>contain mainly and vastly the karmakanda.The karmakanda do not
>categorically state that Brahman is the ultimate reality of the world,
>as in jnanakanda. This is reserved for the jnanakanda.

This is because the question of the ultimate reality of the world does
not arise much in the karmakANDa. Even so, there are brief glimpses and
inklings of the upanishadic discussions of brahman in many karmakANDa
texts belonging to the vedas. 

Moreover, for a question regarding the veda as a whole, it is not a
question of relative size of karmakANDa and jnAnakANDa. The upanishads
are very much a part of the veda, and vedAnta is not a mere
afterthought, that is unconnected with the main body of the veda. When
someone asks what the veda says about ultimate reality, the response
must focus on the jnAnakANDa of the vedas. The relatively larger size of
the karmakANDa portion is irrelevant.

For example, there are many, many more textbooks of physics for high
school students than for graduate students. Relativity and quantum
mechanics are typically not discussed in the books for high school
students, but the graduate textbooks necessarily have to start by
pointing out where classical physics breaks down.

Needless to say, we would be totally and absolutely wrong, if we say
that physics does not say anything about the curvature of space-time or
the wave-particle duality, basing our argument upon the content of the
vast majority of physics textbooks. We have to ignore most of the high
school textbooks and go to the advanced textbooks, if we wish to really
understand higher physics.

It is the same way with the karma- and jnAna- kANDas of the vedas when
it comes to brahman and the universe.

Regards,
Vidyasankar