[Advaita-l] Ācārya teaching through Śabda pramāṇa idea in the vedic mantra saṁhitā

[Raghav Kumar Dwivedula]

Namaste

We have the famous

ācāryavān puruṣo veda (chāndogya up. 6.14.2 )

(The one who had a teacher, knows.)

emphasising the importance of a teacher to teach ātmā-jñānam through
vedānta śabda pramāṇa.

Rig Veda 10.32.7 (from the mantra-saṁhitā portion itself) is another famous
Vedic verse about the value of seeking guidance and knowledge from an
expert, revealed to the ṛṣi kavaśa ailuśa.

The original Sanskrit text transliterates as:

akṣetravit kṣetravidaṃ hyaprāṭ sa praiti kṣetravidānuśiṣṭaḥ | etad vai
bhadram anuśāsanasyota śrutiṃ vindaty-añjasīnām ||

Translation:

"The traveler who knows not the path inquires of one who knows it. Taught
by the knowledgeable one, he journeys onward. This is the great benefit of
instruction; he finds the true and straight path”

Whenever someone claims to directly ‘figure out’ the entire prasthānatraya
meanings by directly translating the verses to suit their own theology, we
get various sectarian vaiṣṇava theologies like rāmānuja or modern
mīmāmsakas like ārya sāmāj etc.

And when prasthānatraya with bhāṣya is studied without the traditional
parampāra, people tend to misrepresent post-Śaṅkara advaitins - the same
mistake is committed again. Because even the awareness of the basic idea of
adhyāropa-apavāda is insufficient to avoid the mistakes born of the
psychological pressure to claim originality and innovation in
interpretation, in the name of adherence to a putative original older
interpretation.

Om

Raghav