[Advaita-l] Apoureshyatva - Faith or Logic?

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

> 
> The whole problem comes because we assume that rishis are historical personalities and the mantra revealed by them did not exist before their time. This is not the Mimamsa position as far as I understand their terse logic. According to their logic, the mantras are eternal and passed down through oral tradition. The names of rishis mentioned are common nouns. The historical persons are proper nouns and they get the name because of interpreting them. 
> 
> I will leave it to Sri Vidyasankar as he seems to think that the mantras were unknown before the rishis revealed them. 

Unknown to whom? They were certainly known to whoever/whatever revealed them
to the Rshi who then passed it on to us.

You seem to be misrepresenting my position. To say that a Rshi lived in time and that
he or she revealed some portion of the veda to mankind does not imply the prior non-
existence of what was revealed. I've never implied anything of the sort, even remotely.
In fact, as a vedAntin, I don't accept prAg-abhAva. As a scientist, I don't accept that
something can come out of nothing. I should have thought that this is obvious to all.
 
Regards,
Vidyasankar