[Advaita-l] Fwd: idaM na mama - The scientific evidence?

[Praveen R. Bhat]

Hari OM, Satish ji,
praNAm,

I see the elaborate pains you've taken in trying to clarify how and why a
particular Vedic ritual cannot be analyzed from a scientific approach or its
methods. You've nicely pointed out how the saMkalpa has to come of its own
in same circumstances just like science needs lab conditions set outside for
the experiment to produce the same results. I completely agree with you on
it, but I just feel like voicing out some related issue. I request you to
kindly indulge me.

I keep seeing frequently how, in modern times, Vedics take the onus on
themselves to prove or even defend the attacks of science on it. I wonder
why. For example, suppose some scientist comes up with a theory, well tested
in his labs and presents it, and if I were to question him: is this
verifiable as per _Vedic_process_ or Nyaya, etc, what will the scientist do?
He'd think that I've lost my mind in asking for an impossibility. I feel our
response to a _scientifically_verifiable_process_ of a vedic injunction
should be exactly the same. Each language has its own tools/ grammar and
cannot be analyzed through other's set of tools.

IMHO, to blindly believe that what shruti says, be it in karma kANDA, is
true with no questions whatsoever is not superstition. Not every scientist
who uses formulas as taught has himself found all formulas as correct by his
own experimentation. Its but a belief, and yes a blind one at that, in some
historical scientist who is believed to have experimented it and come to the
concluding formula. Why then should a Vedic feel obligated to defend his
belief as mere superstition is beyond me. In this, I do agree with Yadu ji
who quoted Samarth Ramdas, to each his own. Of course, a plant growing
faster may have no shruti pramANa, but that in no way should mean that a
yajna as per karma kANDA needs any defence or proof!

Kind rgds,
--Praveen R. Bhat
/* Through what should one know That owing to which all this is known!
[Br.Up. 4.5.15] */