[Advaita-l] Shruti prAmANya and jnAna

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

Namaste,



On Wed, Oct 5, 2016 at 4:29 AM, Venkatraghavan S via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> For pUrva mImAmsa and advaita vedAnta, the truth or validity of any
> cognition is intrinsic (svatah prAmANya), but error is due to certain
> vitiating external conditions of cognition (paratah aprAmANya). Therefore
> any cognition is true so far as it reveals its object and is known to be
> true so far as it is uncontradicted (abAdhita) - so the absence of
> contradiction is a negative condition of truth.
>
> The falsity of cognitions is due to some defects in the conditions out of
> which the cognitions arise. A visual perception becomes false when its
> normal conditions are vitiated by poor eyesight, light etc. Just as a
> cognition is false due to external conditions, it is known to be false
> through the experience of contradiction and knowledge of the vitiating
> conditions. So the falsity of the rope-snake is known when it is
> contradicted by the subsequent experience of the rope.
>
> svatah prAmANyavAda is linked with the justification for the apaurusheyatva
> of veda. The mImAmsaka's view of vedas is that they are unauthored, whether
> by a human or divine agency (apaurusheya). If they were authored by a human
> agency, then the problem they would face is that the defects of the author
> would be present in his creation, and hence the validity of Vedas would be
> called into question. If they were authored by a divine, omniscient God (as
> argued by the naiyyAyikAs), then the validity of scripture would be
> dependent on the existence and omniscience of God. This, the naiyyAyikas
> tries to prove by logic, but that proof has logical errors. Again, the
> validity of Vedas is called into question. To get around this problem, two
> things are done: 1) it is postulated that the Vedas are apaurusheya and 2)
>  the intrinsic validity of pramANa in general is postulated (svatah
> prAmANya), which is then extended and generalised to cover the Veda as an
> independent pramANa.
>
> Regards,
> Venkatraghavan
>
>
>
All these are good, but pUrva-mImAmsakas do not deny reality of this jagat
either. Hence their concepts of prAmANya-svatatsva, vEda-apoUruShEyaatvaM
are all coherent and strong internally.

/sv