[Advaita-l] Scholarly Article on Why Vedas are Valid

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

Shri lalitAlAlitaH,

On Bhakti In Advaita, which I took up because vaishnavas attack that Advaita
lacks bhakti, Prof. Lance Nelson of University of San Diego is publishing a
book based on his research in to Madhusudana Saraswati's work. He *may* use
some of my inputs that Madhusudana's views are not idiosyncratic but aligned
to Adi Shankara perfectly. Prof. Lance Nelson understood that I talk facts
and logic. More importantly, he will have his book reviewed by traditional
scholars such as Shri Krishnamurthy Sastrigal. This is thanks to inputs
given by Shri Subrahmanian, Shri Devanathan, Shri Jaladhar Vyas, Shri
Vidyasankar and of course Shri Krishnamurthy Sastrigal.  Of course, I still
have a lot of work to do on Bhakti In Advaita even as pre-research.
I am saying this not to boast but because I see a dire need to have a
scholarly article on "Why Vedas are a valid source of knowledge?". The
academic world primarily argues that the Vedas are highly discriminatory and
oppressive man made ideas and teaches this in schools in the US and UK. I
could not find even a single peer reviewed paper leave alone a thesis on
"Why are Vedas are a valid source of knowledge?". This will help argue in
the courts against brainwaashing in the schools. If you can write a
scholarly article and debate successfully in front of anti-Hindu professors
at Harvard, Oxford etc. that "Vedas are a valid source of knowledge", great
- I will not even spend the effort, just facilitate it for you to defend
sanatana dharma, which I believe though do not know and cannot defend all
aspects. If you are not concerned with defending sanatana dharma
against those who systematically attack it but want to focus on your sadhana
and teaching the interested students, great - I will not disturb you. I will
look for a guru when I am ready to leave this world.

If you are interested in academic defence of our dharma, then we need to
bring in the rigour. On this topic, the best argument, albeit naescent, is
the axiomatic truth concept proposed by Shri Vidyasankar and supported by
Shri Raghav. The reason I am exploring other lines of defence is that axioms
can only be partially defended and that too with a lot of labour.You
mentioned that you have established through reason but have not seen a clear
postulation. Shri Ramesh's views are very faithful to the tradition and I
respect him for that as well as his concer. But I dont think he has
postulated a clear defence.

The counter to Vedas are pramana is simple. Vedas are learnt through ears,
remembered with the mind,  chanted with the tongue and interpreted with
intelligence (mind again in the west). Based on historical , astronomical,
textual and lingusitic analysis, many scholars have argued that they are
less than a few thousand years old. *A a man made text that is learnt like
any other through direct perception and inference cannot be called a means
of knowledge different from direct perception and inference.* If you can
counter this with logic or some other means, please do so. I have read your
threads and dont think you have a defence that is rigourous. If you do,
please write it up as a paper and let us get them published in a peer
reviewed journal of philsophy to start with and then a journal of
mathematics or science.

2011/10/17 श्रीमल्ललितालालितः <lalitaalaalitah at gmail.com>

> *श्रीमल्ललितालालितः <http://www.lalitaalaalitah.com>
> lalitAlAlitaH <http://about.me/lalitaalaalitah/bio>*
>
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 18:35, Rajaram Venkataramani
> <rajaramvenk at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > Dear Shri Ramesh, it may not concern you but it concerns me that Vedas
> > should be established as a valid source of knowledge in a scholarly
> > manner.
> >
>
> He was doing the same.
> If you can't understand, it's comes on you to do something.
>
> If you can't find logic in statements of previous or this thread, then
> reading shAstra-dIpikA, etc. will also not help you. We just said what is
> said there and elsewhere in a different way.
>
> One more thing can be said. You are not debating to refute but to
> understand. So, studying some work or article with some teacher will be
> best
> for you.
> Once you understand a few basic things of prAmANya-vAda, etc., it will be
> easy for you to find logic in our words too.
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