[Advaita-l] Apaurusheyatva of Vedas

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

This is rejoinder to one of old mail here
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2011-September/028888.html



Sri. Omkar said:

 >In fact, these are not the only two options. A third option is
"svataH-prAmANya for pratyakSha", and "parataH-prAmANya for anumAna and
shabda". i.e,

>the authority of logic and verbal testimony could depend on pratyakSha,
but pratyakSha itself need not depend

> on anything else. I have read (in Edwin Bryant's translation of Yoga
Sutras) that this is the epistemology followed by the Yoga school, and it's
also (broadly speaking) what modern science follows.

>I am aware of an argument that parataH-prAmANya leads to an infinite
regress, but that does not apply to the third option above, since
pratyakSha is at the root. What do you think about this?



Such stand itself is a pramEya and begs for the pramANa. Since you don't
see doctrine of "pratyksha is svataha pramANa and other two are parataH
pramANa" anywhere in pratyaksha, such doctrine cannot be claimed true on
the basis of svataH siddha grounds, for per your own dictum only perceived
in pratyakha is savataH-pramANaya. Hence lacking the pramANa for such
doctrine, it stand refuted.



>  so the more fundamental question here is why svataH-prAmANya is
preferable to parataH-prAmANya.



Because svataH-pramANya is self-contained and does not beg for external
pramANa for the validity of itself. On the other hand, parataH-prAmANya
vAda needs support of other pramANa-s which in turn needs some other
pramANa and hence anavastha. Your position also suffers from svavachana
viROdha fallacy (as explained above) if not anavastha dOSha.



Look at your own position -- both the categories of anumAna and shabda
(which are parataH per your own stand), MUST rely on pratykha (which is
svataH) for them to be get validated. In other words, svataH-pramANya
supersedes parataH-pramANya. So, you are also giving preference to
svataH-pramANya, the only difference is that you do not know you are doing
so!



Regards,

SV