[Advaita-l] Advaita Siddhi series 041 - sann ghaTa iti pratyakshe adhishThAnanuvedha:

[Venkatraghavan S]

Namaste Raghav ji

>
> Such a non-dogmatic approach to understanding Shruti pramANam makes the
> Advaita Vedanta tradition quite versatile and capable of handling
> contemporary schools of thought like scientific materialism etc.
>

Indeed, that's a good observation.

>
> One other point I request you to clarify is about where an arthavAda is to
> be taken literally.
>
> My doubt is - how does the subsequent years injunction to chant yajus
> quietly etc., amount to a *contradiction* of the earlier arthavAda? Is it a
> reference to the fact that the *word* "Rk", "yajus" etc, mean the entire
> Rg-veda in the first (i.e., arthavAda) context while the same words refer
> to only some specific mantras in the second context? The purva-mImAmsaka is
> at pains to point out that the later interpretation of the word Rk, yajus
> in the second (injunction) context is *not* to be retrospectively extended
> to the previous (arthavAda) context. Is this correct?
>

This nyAya refers to a situation where the upakrama and upasamhAra refer to
the same topic. However, there is some contradiction between them. This
nyAya provides the framework to determine which of the two will prevail.

In this particular case, the upakrama occurs in an arthavAda, and it says
that the rig, yajur and sAma veda were born from the three deities
mentioned. In the upasamhAra, a vidhi says that the rig is to be said
loudly, the yajus quietly etc.

Now when the words rig and yajur are used in the upakrama, the knowledge it
generates is asamjAtivirodha, when it arises, it does so with no
contradiction. That is, there is no reason to think that taking rig to mean
rig veda, or yajur to yajurveda is wrong. In the upasamhAra though, one may
think  that it refers to a particular mantra in those Vedas that are to be
chanted  in the manner indicated. Thus, the primary meaning in the upakrama
and upasamhAra are at odds.

One may naturally think that the vidhi is stronger than arthavAda and its
interpretation should prevail, but the pUrva mImAmsaka avers that the
upakrama prevails (despite being arthavAda) and the upasamhAra (despite
being a vidhi) should take the same meaning of the word as the upakrama -
because the upakrama is asamjAtivirodha, when it arises, there is no basis
to limit the scope of the words rig and yajur.

Mere temporal precedence of one pramANa over the other (like one hears a
sentence today and a year later, hears the other sentence) is not
sufficient for this nyAya - rather, it requires that the requirement is
that the upakrama and upasamhAra are clearly linked and equal (they have
ekavAkyatA and sAmya) and the upakrama is not contradicted when it arises.

Thanks
Venkatraghavan


Thank you again for your sharing your Advaita Siddhi adhyayanam.
>
> Om
> Raghav
>
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