[Advaita-l] Veda-s & its apaurusheyatva

[S Jayanarayanan]

--- On Tue, 9/1/09, Bhaskar YR <bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com> wrote:

> From: Bhaskar YR <bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com>
> Subject: [Advaita-l] Veda-s & its apaurusheyatva
> To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>, advaitin at yahoogroups.com
> Cc: "Ram Madhavan" <m_ansram at yahoo.com>
> Date: Tuesday, September 1, 2009, 6:14 AM
> praNAms
> Hare Krishna
> 
> One of my cybernet friends, expressed his observation on
> vedas' 
> aparusheyatva.  I'd like to get the clarification on
> this from the learned 
> prabhuji-s of this forum.  Here is his observation : 
> 
> // quote //
> What puzzled me was that the veda also had intimate
> knowledge of the 
> names,culture,topography etc of a very small place in the
> universe called 
> bhArata-varsha. This was proof to me that veda was
> "authored" by Indians! 
> Had it been unauthored and eternal, it will likely not show
> affinity 
> towards India will it? Why do you think veda has no names
> like John and 
> Peter? Why do you think it makes no reference to places
> such as Europe and 
> Africa? Why do you think it talks of ganga and sarasvati
> and not of Nile 
> or Amazon which are even bigger rivers? The proper nouns in
> the veda are 
> specific to our culture and it is the proof that it is not
> eternal and 
> unauthored. Veda as knowledge is eternal but as a text it
> appears to be a 
> divinely inspired content in accordance with place and time
> in which it 
> was revealed. If veda were to be revealed in another galaxy
> in another 
> planet how will they make sense of the names
> in it? Obviously, if the veda is revealed there, its
> spiritual content 
> will be the same, but not the textual content.
> // unquote //

You should ask your friend a simple question: "Please point to me a region of space (and time) where the Veda exists".

No matter where he points to, ask him how people outside that region know the Veda. Obviously, the words of the Veda are non-physical entities. The fact that words are eternal explains how people in different geographical areas of the world can know the same Veda at the same time. More at http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2004-February/013412.html

The nityatva of words/meanings is proven, but the apaurusheyatva of the Veda is a claim.

Plato uses similar reasoning to show that numbers (1,2,3...) are non-physical eternal entities:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/platonism-mathematics/

> Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
> bhaskar
> PS : I've taken his concurrence to cross post his mail to
> other forum & 
> I've marked a copy of this mail to him also.