[Advaita-l] Apaurusheyatva of Vedas.

[Ramesh Krishnamurthy]

On 13 September 2011 22:35, Ramakrishna Upadrasta <uramakrishna at gmail.com>wrote:

> << Moreover, advaita vedanta as well as mImAMsa school hold that true
> knowledge has not be verified from by any other knowledge.>>
>

Namaste,

I broadly agree with Sri Ramakrishna's presentation of the matter and find
Sri Sadananda's explanation a little strange, unless of course if I am
missing something. shraddhA pertains to the pramANa and not to j~nAna, and
is therefore required for acceptance of any pramANa, and not just for shabda
pramANa and its subset, shruti pramANa.

As mentioned in my earlier post (yesterday) on this topic, the only
distinction one can make between other pramANa-s (especially pratyakSha) and
shabda in this context is that the shraddhA in the former is more
naisargika, as it is constantly reinforced by our daily activities right
from birth. Without this naisargika shraddhA, it would be practically
impossible to go about one's daily life, as anything that one sees, hears,
infers, etc would be subject to doubt. This also explains the need for
svataH prAmANyavAda as Sri Ramakrishna has beautifully articulated.

That j~nAna obtained from pratyakSha is immediate is an entirely different
matter because this is also true for certain cases of shabda pramANa such as
mahAvAkya janita Atmaj~nAna as well as the "tenth man" illustration. And
likewise, if one takes up other cases of shabda pramANa (such as TV news or
shruti vAkya-s on svarga etc) that produce only mediate knowledge, then so
is the case with anumAna.

I may add that a well known contemporary AchArya (Sadananda-ji knows him
well) also makes the point that shraddhA in pratyakSha, anumAna, etc is
constantly reinforced by the fact that we benefit from it.