[Advaita-l] Shruti prAmANya and jnAna

[Venkatraghavan S]

Namaste Swamiji,

On Tue, Oct 4, 2016 at 1:46 PM, श्रीमल्ललितालालितः <
lalitaalaalitah at lalitaalaalitah.com> wrote:

> There is a little problem which I can see.
>
> It was never said that birth of vRRitti needs any acceptance.
> Instead, while supporting vastupramANatantratva of GYAna, it was said that
> it doesn't need puruSha.
> So, you grasped wrong and superimposed your wrong understanding on mine.
>
Yes, I can see that I misunderstood where you were going with your
argument, sorry.

> Another thing to consider, there are two types of prAmANya, tested and
> otherwise.
> Tested one needs all what I said. Untested is svataH and is saved by
> apauruSheyatva.
>
This also I agree with. The prAmANya of shruti has to be tested, otherwise
the knowledge generated is going to be dismissed because of pramANa /
prameya gata sandeha or viparIta bhAvana. Or we will end up like the king
who despite having pratyaksha darshana of his minister Bharcchu, thought he
was seeing a ghost and did not understood the implication of what he was
seeing.

> I hope this much hint is answer of all your doubts, either written here or
> revolving in your mind.
>
> Don't expect that all subtleties will be revealed here. These hints are to
> help you go towards scriptures and logic more.
>
> Study if you can, learn Sanskrit if you can.
> That will help you be independent and know more and clear.
>

Thank you, will certainly follow your advice.

Kind regards,
Venkatraghavan

> Present condition is not good enough and translations are not enough.
>
> That's why we all are continuing study and sAdhana.
>
> On Tue, 4 Oct 2016 17:13 Venkatraghavan S via Advaita-l, <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
>> As part of the recent discussion on Ramana Maharshi, the discussion turned
>> towards the requirement for the acceptance of shruti as a pramANa for the
>> knowledge generated. Specifically Swami LalitAlAlitah said that:
>>
>> "Here, I must make clear that even if someone doesn't hear the same
>> tattvamasi,
>> or have opportunity to learn veda-s/vedAnta-s, he has to accept(logically,
>> not only believe) that the hula-pramANa of the sentence conveying similar
>> meaning is shruti. If he doesn't then the whole thing,
>> the whole process, just becomes a belief system without backing of
>> pramANa-s."
>>
>> I know Swamiji mentioned that he had already dealt with this topic and
>> therefore may not be in a position to clarify, so this is just a general
>> post (and not a request for the Swami to respond).
>>
>> For advaitins (and pUrva mImAmsakas), shruti is accepted as apaurusheya
>> and
>> svatah siddhah pramANa. On alaukika matters, we accept the anadhigatatva
>> of
>> shruti pramANa and hence we are able to say that whenever someone gets
>> brahma jnAna, it has to arise from the shruti.
>>
>> Further, I believe this is true irrespective of whether the person accepts
>> shruti as pramANa or not, or even understands how the jnAna arises.
>>
>> For example, a mirror does not reflect objects subject to 1) the seer
>> accepting that it is a mirror or 2) understanding how the principles of
>> optics work. If the seer comes in front of the mirror, his reflection
>> appears automatically.
>>
>> Similarly, the vedA does not generate knowledge subject to
>> 1) the acceptance on its pramANatvam by the pramAta or
>> 2) the pramAta's attribution of the knowledge generated by shruti, to
>> shruti;
>>
>>
>> If the pramAta, pramANa and prameya, are appropriately aligned, knowledge
>> is automatically generated. Now, the pramAta may refuse to accept the
>> generated knowledge as pramA, or take efforts to preserve the knowledge
>> generated; however, the capacity of the pramANa to generate the jnAna
>> vritti is a given.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Venkatraghavan
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