[Advaita-l] apaurusheyatva of veda-s

[Siva Senani Nori]

I have seen one paper of Sriman Prahladacharya explaining the dvaita position - sort of proving by reason that the Sruti is infalliable. I have not formally studied this topic under a guru nor have I come across - limited as my exposure is - such reasoning in Advaitic works. My understanding is simple or simplistic, depending on your view point: "The Vedas are. I completely trust them and believe I should do what they ordain. No questions, no discussions, thank you." It is with the same faith that one studies vyakarana, other angas and the other darsanas. And it is with the same simplicity that I accept that fire is hot (and not cold, on account of it being manufactured, like water). Or indeed, why unlike the Charvakas, we accept reasoning (inference) as a pramaNa: it makes sense to us.
 
Regards
N. Siva Senani

From: Omkar Deshpande <omkar_deshpande at yahoo.com>
>To: Siva Senani Nori <sivasenani at yahoo.com>; A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
>Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 9:20 PM
>Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] apaurusheyatva of veda-s
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>Namaskara, 
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>>Brahman is not something that can be solely deduced; all that reasoning can come up with is only a hypothesis. It is possible to know that there is Brahman only due to the testimony of the Vedas; if they are paurusheya, they cannot be testimony. 
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>I have a question about this - 
>How does a text being apauruSheya serve as a better testimony than a text that is pauruSheya? If it's said that pauruSheya texts may have flaws because of the bias of the author, how are apauruSheya texts guaranteed to be valid merely because of not having an author? It's not merely the absence of bias that makes an authored text valid, but the presence of knowledge in the author as well. In an unauthored text, not only bias, but the merits of the author (knowledge, etc) would also be missing. How then is validity guaranteed?
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>My familiarity with apauruSheyatva is based on dvaita works, not advaita/Purva-Mimamsa works, and I don't come from an advaita background, so please pardon me if my questions have a well-known answer in the advaita framework. 
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>Regards,
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>Omkar
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