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From: Tom Head (tlh_at_netdoor.com)
Date: Fri Mar 31 2000 - 15:11:59 PST
On Fri, 31 Mar 2000, Kasturi Varadarajan wrote:
> I had the impression that visistAdvaita philisophy (and vedAnta in
> general) seem to rest, among other things, on two premises:
>
> 1. The veda is apaurushEya (un-authored and beginningless), and
> 2. The veda is correct.
>
> But it appears to me that the first premise is redundant. For is it
> not possible that there exists a similar body (say un-veda) which is
> also apaurushEya (un-authored and beginningless) but completely
> incorrect? So the fact that something is apaurushEya says nothing
> about its correctness.
This is a very thought-provoking post, and I thank you for it. A few
thoughts (bearing in mind that a) I am more of a personally Maadhwa than a
Srivaishnavin and b) that my knowledge of Sri Ramanuja's philosophy is
very limited, being based almost entirely on secondhand works such as the
Yatindramatadipika of Srinivasadasa):
* It would seem impossible for an apaurusheya text to be any
less than flawless from the viewpoint of Vishishtadvaita,
since nescience would be a result of the material universe
(which would include the concept of time), and anything
beginningless would be created outside of the nescient
physical universe.
* Newton's Laws are correct within a certain context, but
incorrect in others (e.g., see Einstein's relativity
theory). It follows that to say that a text is flawless
(which an apaurusheya text would have to be) would imply
that it is not only correct within a limited context,
but utterly inerrant in every sense.
Peace,
_____ _ _
|_ _| | | | Tom C. Head
| | | |_| | http://www2.netdoor.com/~tlh
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