[Advaita-l] Pancikarana vs. Trivrtkarana (analysis)

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms Sri Sunil prabhuji
Hare krishna 
I am very much away from my place in India and I do not have the relevant
Sankarbhashya with me. May be another member may be able to send you the
portions you asked for.

>  No problem prabhuji, with a cc to Sri Sunder Hattangadi prabhuji & Sri
Sastri prabhuji, I request them to give me the correct maNtra reference
from chAndOgya upanishad & bhAshya where puraNA-s have been treated as
paNchama veda. 
The Matsya purana says about the five essential criteria of the puranas.
There is no doubt that the  puranas were written also for the women and the
common man who have no Vedic initiation. Vedavyasa makes it very clear in
the beginning of the Bhagavata purana, the last of the puranas at the same
time the highest of puranas as told by the Padma purana. But the puranas
are equally essential for the Vedic scholars. I think we cannot demean them
just because they have been made useful to the uninitiated also.

>  Kindly dont think I am belittling the purANa-s..what I am trying to say
here is, purANa-s should be understood as per the shruti verdict and NOT
the otherway round..As you know, today, most of the purANa-s are forged &
we can find different types of printed versions (pAThAntara-s) & there is
an ample scope of extrapolation based on these forged purANa-s by bigoted
philosophers!! ...Under these circumstances, we cannot take purANa-s as an
independent authority by treating it as on par with veda to do brahma
jignAsa..But yes, I do agree purANa-s are equally essential for the vaidiks
also as long as it is 'shrutyanusAri'.     
If my memory serves me right it is the Vayu purana, which says that the
Vedas and the Puranas were together as one Veda called the Yajurveda before
that was divided into the four Vedas and the Puranas.

>  Again I request Sri Sunder prabhuji for the exact reference...anyway,
this type of eulogical statements (arthavAda) we can find a lot in purANa-s
and IMHO, we should not read too much into these lines. 
Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar