Shabda Pramana is the epistemological principle that verbal testimony from trustworthy sources (Apta) constitutes a valid means of knowledge, particularly for understanding truths beyond empirical perception. In Indian philosophy, all six Astika schools (Samkhya, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Yoga, Mimamsa, and Vedanta) accept Shabda as a Pramana, but they differ significantly in their understanding of its nature and authority. The Mimamsa school argues that the Vedas are authorless and eternal, making them self-valid, while Nyaya attributes their authority to Ishwara (God). The Buddhists challenge this by arguing that language is merely conventional and cannot convey ultimate truth. This system differs from Abrahamic traditions where divine revelation is typically considered the highest authority, whereas Indian philosophy allows for the primacy of perception (Pratyaksha) in empirical domains and reserves Shabda for understanding the unseen (Adrashta) and metaphysical realities.
Because the Vedas Tell Me So?: Let's look at Shabda Pramana and some Exegesis (Meru Live!)Ajouté :
Yeah.
I let it go.
Welcome to the mirror media podcast with the >> Hey everyone and welcome back to the mirror media podcast with along with we have uh Venit and King Kong. Again, follow Venith on his YouTube channel, Philosopher, uh, and King Kong, who doesn't have a YouTube channel, but uh, Twitter or Xac account, whatever. You can follow him there. Um, so how's everyone doing this week?
>> Hello. What's up, guys? What's up, Aunda? King Kong. Pleasure being here again.
>> Yeah. Yeah. It's good to have you guys back. It's been a interesting week overall outside the the realm of philosophy and theology. There's been, you know, uh stuff internationally and things like that. Um how are you King Kong? What's going on?
>> Yeah, doing good. It's been a good week.
Um yeah, been caught up with a lot of stuff as you said. So, let's see uh today's looking forward to today's discussion as we you know left off at Brahmanas. So you know looking forward to today's discussion on Shabbda and its uh scopes. So yes, >> excellent. Uh so um I think last time we had a a general conversation around uh um pmanas. Do you want to do just a quick recap on our uh position beneath?
>> Sure, we can do that. Um can I I mean do I remember where did we end? Uh let me see. I mean we discussed a lot of things. Uh I guess after when I watched the video again I thought when we we were while while the discussion was going I thought okay uh the start was not good because of some technical issues but we wrapped it up quite well.
So we discussed about the you know comparison between western and eastern philosophy.
uh we saw how eastern epistemologists have seen prama prammanas or the means of valid knowledge and how westerners have seen the the same we compared shrih harsha's case with gateier's case which is uh in my view like this is first time being done on YouTube uh such kind of comparative comparison so anybody who's looking to learn or understand comparative philosophy uh should definitely watch that video uh Yeah.
>> Yeah. I mean, so I think it was a great jumping off point and again we have to be I think for our listeners what's important is you know we're not giving a total overarching 100% uh you know survey of the entire tradition. We're providing just enough information for people to want to research and look and find themselves, right? Because this is it's a very, you know, this is 2500 2600 years of of uh discussion that we're trying to encapsulate in, you know, two hours or whatever. And and and and the most salient points for us. So, there's many things we probably did miss and I'm sure we did without a doubt. Um and there's al many things that we should have got to and done a better job with, but we'll get there. So, and I think this week is going to be interesting for a couple reasons. Um, I think talking about Shabbda or talking about scripture is one of the biggest most important um elements within not just Indian traditions but western religions too.
Whether you think about Christianity or Islam, right? How do we think about our shastras or our our spiritual holy texts and you know is it different from the way Christians and Muslims think about the Quran and the Bible? Is it similar?
or is it or is it uh providing a unique way for us to think about it because I do think there's some similarities some differences and I think there's much more uniqueness on the Indian on the Hindu side than there is on those those traditions. So, what I think would be helpful for our listeners and guys, by the way, listening uh guys and gals listening, just ask questions, comment.
If you if if you been following us enough and we know you, you guys can request to jump on the stream, we'll throw you on, we'll have a conversation, you know, we'll go Q&A, we'll we'll do whatever, right? You know, the whole thing about having these shows on Sundays now is really just to put back out there what, you know, we think has been missing in the Hindu ecosystem, which is engagement directly with uh people that have questions, people that have comments, people that that disagree with our position and kind of not doing apologist uh work because we're not trying to do apologists the same way Christians and Muslims do. We want to actually ascertain truth and engage in good strong intellectual discussions and debates but also al also with the view that we do think we're right in many many areas and so we'll push back and show why we think we're right. So so go ahead come on out and join us. Okay. All right. So so let's get into this. What is what is shda? What is um shda pmana? Um, do you have a sense Veneath or King Kong like just on your top level view and then we'll go into a little more discussion on it?
>> Kong.
>> Yeah. Uh, you want to go ahead?
>> No, I mean for last two streams I've been the one starting.
>> Just I'll give you the I'll give you the chance this time.
>> Cool. Cool. Cool. Okay. So in the previous uh stream we discussed about different kinds of pmanas and we saw that uh most of the astika uh as well as the nastika schools being aika being those who accept the vedas as one of the pmanas quote unquote shabda and the nastikas the janna and the bodhas being the primary of them uh doesn't take uh the vedas as one of the pmanas. So amongst these both of these schools we have seen both or both of the categories of schools we have seen a lot of prammanas or means of knowledge uh you know overlapping.
Now within the the domain or within the uh school of or or within the group of the Astika schools we see that shabda is a very common pro is is is is one of the most important pana which is common and accepted by all the six schools of uh of of astika uh doctrine sananka nmansa naya yoga vanta all of them accept sham as a pmana alongside with kubamana prataka etc. Now what is shda? Uh so the very bare minimum definition of that would be a verbal testimony from an APA person or an APA individual and aa over here being apta being the spelling means a trustworthy a reliable uh or in in in in a more definite sense someone who is holy and who has attained a certain degree of of of cognition of certain truths. So these are the verbal testimonies of these people who have cognized certain truths that are not within the domain of uh of empirical knowledge I prataka anumana inference or the other ones. Now how the different schools understand the nature of shabda testimony word uh with relation to the people who gave it how it originated and the domain in which shabda is is is authoritative differs. But I think for a starting point we can say that the validity of of testimony through the modes of shabda and through the medium of aa people uh trustworthy authorative sources is accepted and acknowledged as one of the pmanas within all the six schools of of astika.
>> Yeah. Uh so I think I think that's a great point. I think we you know at some level when we talk about shoved the pana there's two ways to really think about this right um we think about it as scripture right we think about it as hey you know this book the ga says something the bible says something why should we take this to be valid true or worthy of engagement in a in a way to produce knowledge in us right to to to even to understand if this is true or what they're what the statements are true now I think That's one way to think and that's the way most religious people think about this, right? The the text is is true because it's from God or it's you know something like that. Now it's interesting because I think the theas much earlier uh came up with this concept of you know that we trust text or any sort of uh uh uh secondhand authority right like the secondhand because we're not observing it ourselves. We're not inferring it ourselves. It's coming from outside of us, right? And that outside information is anything. Could be someone telling you uh something uh you reading something, you seeing something like that's not based on your information, right? Even when you go, you watch the news, someone tells you what the news is. Sometimes you read an article, they tell you what what happened and you accept those things. So the nyakas came to the table and said kind of okay why should we accept these things and what basis should we accept these things and is scripture just like everything else.
So is scripture in a different category than any sort of um testimony? The better word I guess would be testimony here some sort of testimony. Um and so they came up with a elaborative way of approaching this by assessing a few things, right? You assess the uh the person speaking. Who is the person speaking? Right? Okay. Look at their intentions, look at their motivations, look at the their their are they getting a benefit from anything like for example wealth, money, power, those kind of things. Um are they trustworthy? generally is what they're saying in the realm of the things they could or wouldn't know, right? There are all these categories they put upon this concept of testimony, right? So, for example, let's say, you know, you're walking down the street and, you know, some person runs up to you and they just yell, "There's, you know, there's a monster. King Kong's on, you know, there's the King Kong monsters, you know, three streets over and attacking buildings." Right. Right. Just an example, right? So, you'll first look at the person. How do they look? Do they do they look disheveled? Do they look like they're high? Do they And then you'd be like, "Okay, this is stupid. I don't need to listen to you because you look like maybe you're on drugs or you're just, you know, maybe this uh degenerate person or you're homeless or whatever, you might just blow by it. But if you're, let's say, for example, someone you trust with your life, your mother is comes running to you and and she normally doesn't joke around or does any of this stuff and she's like, "Oh my god, this is the case." At first you might be like, "What?" I mean, because first you think out the content of what she's saying. Is this even possible? But then you would you'd stop for a second and be like, "My mom said it, so there's must be some truth to this." And then you'd go investigate it, right? And go see if it's true or not. So based on different people, their their intentions, their desires, their motivations, what they gained from it, and how and would they know this information. uh you would then ascertain if this is a if the statement given by the person or text is true or not. Now I think in this context the nyakas apply this to the vedas primarily and then secondarily to the piranhas I mean piranhas and sayas and they'll say something to the nature of well the author of the vedas is god right god has no no desire no he gets nothing from this it just these are like the words of god or breath of god and and he's the author of these texts so therefore they're trustworthy Um and because they're trustworthy, you could take them for what they are and and take it as valid. Now there's a element in numamsa and and I'm bringing something in earlier I mean later in earlier because it's actually in engaged in overall pmana theory which we didn't discuss is earlier is for most thinkers in in ancient India and Hinduism primarily Buddhists are not exactly like this but um they will take the position that all cognition is valid meaning just by having cognition itself whether it's going to be testimony inference or uh uh vision or you know whatever perception its default is you trust it and then you verify it right you don't start with the position that this is not true so if the vic texts are from an author that is uh let's say perfect infinite uh without desire without motivation without any tangible benefit is is trustworthy is providing then you take that initially as being valid and then you investigate to determine if it's true or not Um, so that's kind of how the Nyak has approached this. Any any thoughts on this guys?
>> Uh, Vinnie, you want to say something?
>> Oh yeah. Regarding the uh intrinsic validity of knowledge. So I guess the Mimmanagas as well as the Dwightians they accept this doctrine. So in in their view any knowledge any cognitive state or uh any knowledge episode let's say is intrinsically valid. So the onus if anyone challenges let's say you there's a vic statement or a shabda brahana regarding a certain uh you know a certain sacrifice which results in so and so thing or so and so reward that is intrinsically valid for these philosophers and so if anybody wants to disagree with that and want to challenge that then the onus is automatically on them because these guys they don't accept extrinsic validity of knowledge.
So by default the knowledge is valid.
Now if you think that Vedas are invalid or the they are not uh you know not a kind of a pana that you can't challenge then the onus is on you to bring evidence or you know try to go around it and show how they do not stand up to the criteria of intrinsic validity. So that's a very important thing because when I was reading nyayakas the naya view on uh how they defend shabana it's different from the nimmanas the nyayakas they attribute it to god >> they they say that veedas are authoritative because they are the words of god mimmansukas although it is you can people contest that scholars contest that they are not out andout atheists but they are not neither theists as well like not theist in a classical sense of the term. Yeah, >> they could not. Yeah.
>> So, I was say let's get to Mimsa in a minute because I think it's going to be interesting because their arguments >> are very different from Yayakas, right?
The Yayaka in some sense we can say, you know, I would say at some level they're very they're somewhat similar to Christian Muslim arguments in terms of >> in terms of the the nature of the text, right? Like for example, the the Quran is considered the word of God, therefore is inherently authoritative, right? Um and then so because similarly that God is a perfect being he has you know similar types of arguments there and the Bible the same thing you know it's it's even though the Bible interesting enough admits that the text itself was not written by God in any in any real sense it is inspired by God. Right? This is a Christian p uh the primary Christian position. I'm not talking about the Jewish position on this. Right. So this idea that the Bible itself has been inspired or you know um the Holy Spirit has come upon the the authors and the redactors and the compilers of the the Bible that we have today is is part of the the understanding within the Christian tradition. Now within the the Indian tradition, Vic tradition, we do have something somewhat similar, right?
Because at the end of the day, like the Vedas, they're called a samita, you know, especially the these they're bringing together of the various sections of of or or different um uh different portions into one like one one single like body of knowledge. So each composition is attributed to a different rishi or a different seer you know adashta seer also they call them rishies too um and the question arises even with nyayaka tradition is and we'll deal with the mima later is even though the rishies are the ones that saw it did they actually compose it is this com composed created by the rishies And the mom says largely argue no it is dishrusha seen observed. It's almost as if like you know like we ascertain the law of gravity right did we create the law of gravity? Did we did we make it up? Did we compose it so to speak? No we kind of discovered it or it's the equivalent of saying you know like you know I I travel across the ocean and I and I discovered this. I didn't create the island. I didn't make the island. I just discovered it. It's there. its existence in the fabric of reality. And similarly the idea is the Vic hymns not not necessarily the so the nyakas might might differ on this but like this idea that these these concepts these these these hymns together are existent in in morphological form in in existence itself and the rishies observe it and they see it and then they bring it into uh the world below them or to our world and they're actually like the words of God, the breath, the speech, the the the the oscillation of of Ishwara's like like you know nature. Um yeah, do you have a thoughts on this Venit?
Um yeah, regarding this what you just said about so I mean one could ask uh if these Vic mantras have already have always existed and if they were not uh they were not getting created at the moment of utterance be it from Ishwara or be it from the sages then what about their ontology. So uh this is something perhaps uh I mean one can compare how the nayakas attribute the revelation of the vedas to god uh to the Quranic revelation. But this thing about the ontology of the mantras that the mimman sagas and the vidantans had to you know deal with and come up with an answer. I guess this is not seen in the Abrahamic tradition. So they did uh you know they they were not as far as my memory serves well and whatever that I have read never come across any debate regarding the ontology of the Quranic uh verses like where were they before being revealed to prophet. They say that they were on a transcendental tablet loaf as they say it in Arabic. uh but even then it was like in a in a uh you know the the text was already there like it was in a book form already it wasn't in a sense of how we perceive or understand mantras right so when we talk about mantras existing uh eternally we are talking about structures of knowledge existing eternally this is entirely different from the loaf concept that the Abrahamics have >> yeah yeah I think that's right because some I mean sorry to interrupt. Um, >> no, no.
>> So, the idea is, and my mom says, we'll get into this later because they they're way more complex and subtle and and uh, you know, radical about this, but a part of the element is the, you know, the Vedas are not seen as historic, right?
Even even when we even when early people like Yasa and his nura or the Brahmanas interpreting. So this hermeneutical tradition by the way like of understanding what the veda was is built into the veda itself right like so the mantra samita is there but mantra samita is explained by the brahmanas the brahmanas are explained by aronikas aronikas explained by punishads and then you have thehasa purana trying to explain the the the vedas and then you have the various other ones streams right so the entire thing is interpretation all the way around built into the very nature of the text right um and then and and within the tradition too so I think that's uniquely something that's Abrahamics do not possess at in any way, shape or form. I mean actually not not entirely true because like if you look at Christianity what they what they will do is they'll they'll look at the motifs of you know Isaiah in the book of Isaiah or the Psalms and they bring it into the New Testament but the explicit nature of the hermeneutical and existical framework is not built into the the the tradition or the text itself like it is in the Indian tradition. So going back to this particular point, this idea that the Vedas themselves are reflecting eternal truths, right? They're reflecting for example the nature of the cosmos, the nature of co cosmic entities, but more also the nature of language, right?
That's very important for them that language is always in this relational kind of uh uh situation. So by getting the revelation in one itself the the rishi is engaging in the revelation right in in in that process. So the Vic uh I mean the idea of the Vedas being um this universal and um you know foundational elements of the universe is not necessarily this physical universe we think about like touching feeling and all these things that they're about the nature of like a sound element. there's this existence of phenomes and and vibrations that exist beyond simple uh um you know physical manifestation so to speak. Um and so those those elements we observe or the rishies observe in their in their deep meditation or just spontaneous when they receive it it they they present it out. It's, you know, it's akin to when when some people create poetry or someone discovers a mathematical equation, they're not like, you know, oh, I saw this, you know, a lot of mathematicians are like, oh, this is just the beauty of math. It exists.
It exists everywhere, right? And and and somewhat the same way the the Vic seers saw that language or sound or this this I wouldn't say auditory element but this like almost expansive element exists everywhere and it's comes down through the Vedas. So it's a discovery through the Vedas, right? different than than like going to the Quran and saying, "Well, God had written in in the heavenly Quran that Muhammad would come at this time and give this message and so on and so forth." It's it it it's less historical, more I would say like foundational cosmological. Yeah.
Thoughts?
>> Yeah. So yeah, I think I uh you have you have covered most of the brief points about the nature of the Vedas or the Shakta, how uh the different schools see it. Now uh regarding the nayaka view right that where does this knowledge exist as ven pointed out so uh as far as certain academicians the early nayakas didn't have any kind of uh you know proposition regarding Ishwara being the uh the author of the vedas uh the naya sutra is is kind of silent uh I I well again the you know differentademicians might differ that there might have been a certain rudimentary ideas.
But now when when the naya is fully fleshed out, the idea is that at the start of each cosmic cycle, it is Ishwara who combines these words, sound forms together, stitches it and gives the Vedas to the rishies of the to the to Brahma etc. Now where does this the the knowledge of the Vedas stay between the junctions of the of the of the birth the end of one kulpa and the beginning of the other cosmic cycle? Well, the answer is within Ishwara's knowledge.
So, Ishwara the Nayakas would say that we have lot of aptas like Gautama who is the uh you know the founder of the Nayaka school. He's an aapurusha right he's a trustworthy sage there are other sages but Ishwara is the apta of all the aptas he he's the most trustworthy source ever right and he teaches all these rishies now the the the cognition the knowledge of the vedas the content of the vedas are the the content of the propositions of the vedas are within Ishwara within Ishwara's mind or consciousness however you want to see that uh during the time of the deluge or during the time of the cosmic sleep and when the next cycle is kickstarted he for the betterment of the world or to to to to to help the other people uh understand or the jas understand the nature of reality gives these two uh trustworthy uh sages. Right? Now the the the difference between the mimmansas meansakas with the the nayakas would over here be the mimmansakas would hold on to and as we would see for the hold on to a very concrete and very robust view about the eternality of the sound of the vedas right so it's not that you know even if the meaning you know subsists or or or is preserved across these cosmic cycles uh it's it's not enough for them Right. It and even the sound pattern has to survive the deluge.
Now for the for the nayakas it doesn't you know it does cuz for examp because they also take the fact that sound is perishable right when I utter something it goes off right there there's no eternality as such in that and they don't see this as a problem because the meaning is already preserved in Ishwara and Ishwara can give and reveal different parts at the starting of each cycle. Uh yeah that that that would be it. Now uh I I mean we can we can discuss some certain things about how the Vedas see the nature of their mantras makuda. So yeah go.
>> Yeah. So regarding uh about the grounding of the Vedas we can't say the same about nanikas right because they don't have the concept of ishwara. So vidantis can say that yes during the time of annihilation annihilation or destruction of the universe no there's no seer no human seer or no divine celestial seer uh to see the vedas or preserve it in their consciousness. So who's preserving it right and we can say that it's Brahman basically Brahman eternally sees all the mantras of the Vedas in the exact syntactical order and it is him who as the Vedas say that he who it is he who revealed it to the uh to Brahma I guess if I think that's in the Vedas or the pranas but yeah there there's a statement to that effect so the vantins can say that it is preserved in Ishwara's consciousness but what about Vimmanakas Where are they grounding these mantras?
Can we say uh they are something similar to mathematical platonists regarding the numbers? So can we Yeah.
>> Um I do I think I think can we do this when we get into the mimmanakas?
>> Yeah interesting. I you know what I I think would be good right now is maybe we talk about the Buddhists >> right and their response to because in in that in that engagement with the Buddhist tradition we'll get a sense of what uh how the mamska developed their philosophy sure and why they developed the way >> so before we go to the Buddhist understanding of Shabda and how they critique it uh can you know pull up the slide that I shared regarding Sana's commentary on Rick Mantra Yeah, but sas so much later, right? Do we want to do that first?
>> Oh, no. I just wanted to show that the understanding of of of the mantra within the corpus, the samita, and how it sees itself >> and just some brief remark.
>> Let me make sure. Let me pull that up.
Uh do you have your computer open with those passengers?
>> Um no, actually I'm uh you know accessing it through my phone. So >> yeah, we got to change that next time.
Hold on. So let me let me pull this up here. Give me a sec. continue. Um because you have a couple different ones in Sina, right? So could you get me that? Oh, Ch's commentary. Let me look at Sina.
Which one was Sinus? Did you Sorry.
Okay, let me see. Oh, yeah, that one.
Okay, that was the one. Okay, that's what I thought. All right, let's pull that baby up and then let's share it. All right, looks tired, guys. So, we're going to pull this up right now. There you go.
Okay, we're on stage. There we go.
Right. This one.
King Kong.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So this would be so this okay so in this slide what I'm trying to show is that how the six schools understand shabda right so naya accepts or naya and yoga primarily accepts ishwara along with vanta but we'll go to vanta later so naya takes the understanding as we said that words are non-eternal right uh they're a feature of akasha and and it's something that even sanka you know takes Because uh the accasha is one of the uh you know the the tan matras that develop out of the or sorry sound is one of the tan matras that develop out of akasha space. Now the interesting difference between sananka and naya is that naya accepts an ishwhara right so an ishwara is in the dealings of giving and you know imparting the knowledge of the veas but the sanankans don't have an ishwara at least the nirishwarada or nonhishwara sananka doesn't have this right so it's it's procriti and purusha right priti does all the formulations starting up from your mind to the you know galaxies and stuff of cosmic order. Purusha just you know imparts activity to it right and so within that field even Brahma Maheshwara you know Vishnu all of them would be different purushas different jas right >> probably exalted due to their previous karmmas >> now there's a uh you know for for for the brevity of time there's a very uh short and a good paper by Oena Luchi Zena I'm I'm I'm obviously pronouncing her name wrong the Name of the paper is Sananka on the validity of brahmana and the invalidity of cognition.
Right? So over there she discusses regarding how the early Sanankans saw the nature of Shabda and she shows that most of the commentators of of of the Sanka you know even like Vataspati Mishra and all they take that the Vedas are authorless and as Venit said they they hold to the point that these were given or these are understood or or or recognized by these aa people these seers these sages they would even include Brahma in this as Brahma would be the first sage and then you know they would depart impart these knowledge to uh their disciples and so on and so forth. However, she also mentions about one of the later uh commentators and uh the the the question that they deal with is what happens between these you know these two junctions between these two world cycles right because within Sanka there's also no Ishwara you see so how do they know the knowledge of the previous kalpa and the answer that is provided by the commentator is that certain sages like Capila you know Capila would be the the founder of of of Shanka So that's why we take that example due to their karmmas and due to their ability to recognize or to recollect the imprints of their previous lives they can reveas that they had learned in the previous kappa and hence they can give it to the generation of this creation cycle. So that would be on you know on a very brief note about the nature of the sankans the nyayakas the mimmansakas we are keeping it for you know for the for the conversation to go more forward >> yoga is an interesting school right so the yogans accept Ishwara Ishwara is a visha purusha he's a special personality >> who is beyond all klesa's karmic imprints >> and he's he he's also now vishu he's patali takes him to be one of the uh models for meditation. Uh as well as you know he who gives anraha for to the yogi to or or grace to the yogi to you know continue in this uh cycle of or of of getting to vishwara or to understand or or to you know free his soul his true atman of all these clatas of all these samsaric bonds. Now yoga also accepts chopda as pmanana and uh the understanding well the due to uh you know lack of commentaries on this particular topic regarding the nature of shabda within the yogas but as they take ishwara into the picture I guess you know their understanding of even shabda is similar to that of the nayakas the vishikas uh interestingly uh you know within the vishika sutra they don't deal much regarding the nature of the shabdas.
>> No, but not at all.
>> Yeah, you you want to add something?
>> No, no, no. I was just going to say, yeah, they actually don't really deal with shabda in sutras.
>> Yeah. So, with with the with the with the evolution of time and with the schools bonding and and and you know coag coagulating with each other uh joined the naya fold and become like naishika, right? So they also adopted the naya naya understanding of how uh shabda is is revealed. Now vanta also has but vanta's understanding of how you know different >> let's let's hold off on vanta because I think that will touch base with imamsa right very deeply about what the nature is okay so I think we have a general sense of what the the various schools within the the the Hindu tradition or astikica tradition will approach you know uh that concept of shabda right at least at this stage and then we'll get a little deeper because I think the Buddhists have very interesting points here that I think are worth engaging with and then we'll address the Buddhist points through Mamsa and then you know our own perspective. So let me pull up that slide here. Hold one sec.
Okay.
So the Buddhists are fascinating for a variety of reasons. I think they they're like such interesting like uh response and they their their own epistemology from that also is pretty fascinating.
Okay. So now we have okay up here. All right. So this is one of the the main things Buddhist say and there's other things we'll get we'll talk about this. So the Buddhist one of their biggest arguments is that the Hindu tradition takes you the perspective first they attack the notion of of some sort of permanence of self of the the concept of permanence at all.
the concept of you know the the idea that language is so they presented the view that language is merely convention right so let's start with the first idea this idea that language is merely convention their argument is well how can the vedas in any way shape or form give you truth when the words they use are merely dependent upon convention like if I say today if I use the word uh you know uh bright that word is context within in my my my culture my my my language uh limitations right so for example maybe bright when I say the sun is bright am I using the same concept of saying as the sun is bright your eyes are bright well your eyes aren't bright the sun is bright so we're we're using convention here to to describe reality when reality can't be described merely through convention right so what is it the Vedas are actually providing then are they providing us convention Are they providing us ultimate reality?
They can't provide us ultimate reality because words don't do that. Words are merely giving you a statement about what something is not. Right? So if I say something is bright, what what I'm saying it's not dark. So that's one of their arguments on on this is like this idea that the Vedas and the words of the Vedas are something that provide knowledge or provide truth is nonsensical because one language is convention. to there is no permanent self. There is no permanence.
So when vas speak of permanence, they are speaking of something that's anti anti antithetical to the very nature of existence because we see things changing around. We see no permanence. So how can they the speak of permanence? You cannot have a god that's permanent either. Um so they then go on to attack the very nature of the the the author of the the Vedas. Like if it's God then you know um you know how is it God that is uh you know somewhat he he would only create the Vedas if he had something lacking.
Therefore he you know either he's lacking himself the Vas don't provide ultimate truth. um and they kind of just just deconstruct the the very nature of the foundation of the Vic tradition. Do you have thoughts on this?
>> Oh yeah, real quick about the Apohar doctrine that you mentioned. So correct.
I mean that's a bizarre implication for the Vikas because the Buddhists are basically saying any word that you utter the direct the immediate connotation of the word is not is not something that's basically being connoted. So if I say cow, I do not the word cow does not by itself relate to any perceptible perceptible or an object in in and of itself which is cow but rather not cow. So in this way every word basically conotes its negation. If that is the case then the entire veda is not giving you knowledge. It's it's giving you uh the negation thereof, right? The negation of the exact thing that it is talking about and that's very bizarre, right? And that's that's most u I I guess stupendous way to count bring any counter forward. Who else could have thought that other than the Buddhists? Uh so yeah, that's that's something to take notice. Other than that uh about this author and uh you know the authorless unknown author of the Vedas argument. So often me and King Kong would go in a discussion of how do you make sense of this argument given by the mimmanas.
this particular argument that is being displayed on the slide. Uh you I mean this argument Buddhist could only use against the mimmanas and the vidantis not against nayakas because nayakas except author of the Vedas.
So if you take the mimmanic argument and if you put it in a you know premised conclusion form you could say that because Vedas do not have an author and therefore they are in a way leaving the intermediary promises getting straight to the conclusion we can say they are in a way self valid or authoritative on the face of it this argument sounds uh I'm sorry to use the word but sounds very ridiculous. to be honest because and that's what the Buddhist feels right he comes up with a even more ridiculous counter example he says okay I have a book in my hand uh the author of this book is not known right suppose I was trolling around and I found a book and I uh could not find its author so can argument and say that oh well we do not know who the author is nobody has we cannot establish the author either through Prataka or Anumana or Upmana. So therefore since it defies all the pmanas we can say the book is self- authoritative. What do you guys think about this counter? It does seem to be trivializing the whole the entire thing.
>> Yeah, there's a couple things. So I I'll I'll jump into that in a second. Um so so this argument that you presented is the Buddhist argument against the Mimsikas, right? because the imams are essentially arguing and maybe I'll expand on this. So the history here is the Buddhist earlier argument was against the nature of Ishwara and that that any speech is dependent upon context person speaking the relation words um the author and and and memory and all this other stuff right like um so they're making a argument basically trying to undermine first undermine the concept of shabda secondly undermine the nature of of of anything outside of direct perception, right? In some sense, Buddhists will say they're primarily like only direct perception and their own and and anumana are are the basis for any any knowledge and even that knowledge is is is limited and and and um and and not ultimate. So the imams came back in response and said to the nature of of the Buddhist argument and said well your argument only applies when we have an author we're saying that the vas have no author they're authorless they are beyond this concept of someone creating it but in fact they're the very nature of existence right they exist as is and they've somehow been seen and experienced by the the rishies by by the again they're They're very clear the rishies are merely the conduit for the for the the Vedas. So the Buddhist response to this is like oh well yeah I mean fine you say it's authorless but all that means is you don't know who it is. It doesn't mean that there there is no author because look at all indications in the world. Every single every single thing that is written or told is coming from someone. We don't have an indication of any authorless anything. So, but then the Mamoa's response to this is, well, where does speech come from? No one authored speech. No one came up with these phenomes, these words. They exist. They exist and they re they come into being every time we utter them. So, it's not like someone suddenly said, "Eureka, you know, ca sound exists. I create ca." No one did that. Someone ca sound came. And when that sound comes, where's it coming from? is coming from something that's beyond the level of authorness. So their argument the the moms argument is just like these phenomes exist in the world not created by anyone not no one comes and says I'm going to use the word cow to mean that what they somehow do is the cow link is made someone uses the word and then that word is is connected to cow intrinsically.
So the Vic the imam's argument is words connotate real things always Buddhist argument is no words only connotate conventional things that we create these relations so this is a big dispute between the two right and they're both have good points here at end of the day the mom is right no one's creating words no one's walking out and say you know these aren't like words we create they exist and we're issuing them So mom says right there the the boat does it somewhat right by saying well you know but the some of this is convention you know why do I call you know um I know uh a dog a dog versus a wolf a dog right are these they're they're almost the same thing they they share similar qualities they behave certain ways so in some sense they're arguing convention well the the moms is saying well it's not convention there's differences so the word the word you Vika and the word you know um you know uh you know kuka or also um you know uh uh what's it called? Uh oh my god word for dogan.
Yeah. So >> yeah like like yeah these words have real connections in the real world. So and no one created those connections.
They just happened. So does that make sense in that response of how they're responding to this?
>> Um yeah we I mean as a response to uh this particular argument I mean the synopsis definitely makes sense and thank you for you know giving the background and explaining the entire thing and how it erupted basically. So on one side you have the numansas arguing that words do pick out positive things. Buddhists are going on contrary that no they do not pick out things positively but we are negative. So when you say cow you basically mean you exclude everything that is not cow. So not not cow basically. Uh does that does that refute this argument? I'm not sure what do you guys think. I mean uh because I feel like the Buddhist wants to trivialize the entire thing.
There's a parallel in between.
>> Well, the argument from for for the the Apogeeist is very particular for one one thing only, right? Is to to say that the Vic texts are unique. They're different than any other text or testimony in in the world, >> right? Therefore, the rules that apply to regular texts don't apply to the Vic ones.
So >> are they are they taking it as a exam like beginning with this first beginning with it as a first principle kind of a thing?
>> Yes. So, so, so the mimoms are saying basically, so we know all how how all testimony functions in the world, right?
We know that you know first of all like you know it is author dependent intent.
Well, actually it's funny interesting provocative has a different view on this. Kumala does take this position which is you know we know this stuff like you know authorial intent um you know uh uh uh speech in terms of how it developed in in in in between the listener and the hearer um and that words have meaning and so on so forth right so what the momas are arguing fundamentally is all normal text all normal testimony is based on these things but what if what if you have a text or testimony that is authorless, that is eternal, that is beyond other testimony, is that to be treated differently? Right?
Because for for most other texts, there is a a a validation exercise that occurs, right? Like for example, like you know, you know, if if I say something like fire, you know, there is fire in the mountain, you know, you look see there's smoke, there's all these inferential things you you get to to get to that conclusion. what and to and also justify your vision and so on. What they're saying here in this context is the Vedas because they are authorless.
They don't have an origin point. They are eternal. They're they they're not they don't fall to the same um defects that regular testimony does. So therefore they can be taken as self- valid. They can be taken as being um um you know absolute within their realm.
Right? Now this is also the difference is in some sense the Vic authors or the mumamsa authors are not making claims about the ultimate nature of reality in terms of the way the Buddhists are. The Buddhists are making claims about that somehow there is a existence beyond you know conception beyond uh you know this idea of shunya this idea of like so the the the mamas are basically saying no the texts are giving us directives the vedas so it's also important to note this is where the difference between the moms and vanta occurs is not so much caring about this idea of uh moa or nirvana or some you blissful state in beyond this world. They're really cared about why one should adhere to the Vedas and why the Vedas should be taken as authoritative. So this authorless claim leads first primarily to that. The the the way they get to the authorless claim is like I said earlier is about this nature of language, the nature of speech, how it's not authored. So it is we can trust speech, we can trust it. Um now Kumar and and Pbakara take two different views on this where the nature like the Buddhists will say well the word itself is the also the place where you find uh the the statement if I say you know uh I don't know glass or cup right they will say well the kumar says the word cup itself has inherent meaning well probaka mishra will say something to nature well that doesn't make sense If it would have to it's relational even if I show you a cup I'm saying this is a cup there is a connection that's built in between language language is not so kumar says the word itself the phenome is is the primary source of meaning whereas pbaka says oh the sentence you only get the meaning of something through a sentence so the Buddha says well yeah that's conventionally true but not absolutely right they're saying their the words themselves have meaning because we provide them meaning is not saying that isn't saying that Buddhists are saying the the word cup only means cup because we'd say it's cup not because there's a thing as a cup right so that's their argument whereas you know kumala is saying no no no if I say this is a cup it's a cup I didn't make up the relation the relation just inheres naturally so it's just because you think it's made up in terms of I'm assigning it to it that's not I don't call something something just because I can decide to call it that. It becomes that because that's the nature of the thing like the word refers to something real. So this is a big difference and this is where again when you go to the so if words have meaning and are real then the vic words which are authorless eternal have real real function in this world. So the so the imam says are building the nature of of the the the shabda piece by piece and the Buddhists because the Buddha's ultimate position is there's no sha pana there's only an animuma right ultimately and this is where they get into their own problem which is the which is the imam says point out from the getgo and the nyakas later do too which is hey you Buddhist you listen to Buddha what's buddachana like and this is where like Well, and this is where there's hermeneutics being played. The Buddhists have to be like, well, it's not like we take it to be true. It's upaya, right? It is it is merely in helpful to us. It is a teaching. It's not truth. It it's it so it's that way. It's it they have to do this flip where at some point they're saying, well, we kind of have to follow it until we know different. With Shankara, by the way, that's similarly what he does with the Vedas, right? You follow the Vedas until you achieve, but it's a little different because Shankara takes a difference from Kumala and Pbakara in terms of the nature of what the Vedas are about versus um you know, the purpose of what Kumala and Prabakara think. Um so I mean is this is this making sense? Is this helpful at all?
>> Yes, it is. It is very helpful that you brought up uh the the nature or let's say the the unmanifested uh you know presence of shabda within the Buddhist as well as the Janna tradition right a lot of people think that shabda testimony is one of the pmanas only in the astika schools but they forgot about forget about the Buddha vachanas or the vachanas of the bodhic satwas or or the arhats of of the Buddhist schools right and as you said that mimmanakas do and Nayakas to raise the point that well even you have testimony of your teachers on your side right so and of course then you know different school you know philosophers like Vasuabandhu or you know other you know scholars from the Madamea school would say that well these are rupaya koshala these are like you know the fingers pointing at the moon or you know we can uh you know like uh some you know some navanists would say that in some sutra of of the triitaka Buddha said that you know use your rationality and then and then discern which is true or not there is some kind of protoform of that understanding within the early Buddhists not maybe in the necessary in the case that you know well everything that's coming down to you know just empirical understanding we'll keep that and rest you know we'll drop off because then you know rebirth the the nature of nirvana the nature of the pure lands as attested by the bodhic satwas would also you know get lpped off. uh and the reason I I I brought this you know reason thing right is uh this is again attested also by the mansakas shankara and ramanuja within the tradition right that that how how how do we understand the nature of these statements and we can discuss this further right so yes uh that that was really you know uh like giving an entire brief of this development about shabda to and fro between the mimman sakas and the Buddhists Yeah, when you wanted to say something.
>> Um, yeah, I mean, so we are basically we have delved into the intricacies of language and we have seen how the philosophy of language which both of these schools held the Mimias and the Buddhists. Something that Mukunda commented upon or the way he explained the Buddhist uh philosophy of language reminds me of Bidgenstein. So just as a passing uh passing reference and a passing note he argues against the referential theorists. So here referential theorists would be the mimmanas for whom every word has a reference in the external world. And remember the Buddhists especially dignava and others. uh they are u you know they're not externalist they're not realist in a sense that they accept a you know mind independent world that exists out there which is mapped in every proposition or with every word so they come very close to vitinstein because vitinstein says the same thing he says you don't need a reference to understand a particular word language works like an algorithm so if you have syntax and if couple of people have been repeating that syntax again and in uh there a pattern develops in the mind where the mind automatically recognizes that this is the next words that's going to follow. If you have the syntax in your mind, if you have the grammar in your mind, you do not really need the object outside of the language in order to utter the next word because you have uttered it so many times. Uh you know what the next word is going to be because it fits well with a particular kind of sentence in the standard grammar that is spoken in the social world. So this comes very close to what the Buddhist is saying. He's saying that let's say I say a formal greeting how are you. Now how are you need not for the mimmansas you would have a connotation which is you the person that I'm referring to. For the Buddhist they would say you gets its meaning by repeated you usage over generations and generations. Something which comes very close to viginstein. So he would say the word you has a meaning because it has uh integrated itself into this standard syntax how are you. So you always follows how and are. That's quite you know this this understanding is very algorithmic in a sense that that's how AI also uh uses language. It does not positively understand what each word means. Right? So uh it understands it by following the pattern how words appear one after the other. So that's something we see in the in the Buddhist philosophy of language as well.
>> Yeah. which is which would the the the mamsa would would respond back and basically say well maybe that's the case in most languages but it's not the case in this language which then will file jump into sunskrit right and basically say well we have these strict rules that actually have been the case for forever as far as far back we can go like we know we can build you know everything from these datus right these roots You know, it's not these roots aren't arbitrary. They didn't like isn't just like some random like because of convention. No, K means action and that leads to various you can't from that word just make up another word like and say k means water. You can't do that. It doesn't make sense. There are rules within language and these rules are built into the language itself. So what they even though you might say it's convention over time people just habitually do it well there the rules don't change over time your words might change but the rules keep the language the language still like you don't end up English to be English you have to have subject object you know you know uh the the structure has to be if I say you me that makes no sense if I it I I would have to say like I am you or you are me are me you it would be like you'd be like what does that mean nothing I've used all the conventions I've used this the the words and the reference but the the structure of the language is going to tell you what's the referring who's who's speaking what's the connection it's not so the this mom's argument is clearly that matters it's not just made up correct I mean you guys can respond.
>> Yeah. So just to you know address this slide and then we can move to other slides. So whatever that we discussed and whatever that Makunda explained we can basically gauge out the response that Mayansa would give. He would say that you can't trivialize our original argument using this counterargument because Veda is unlike any other book.
And I would want to comment on this how close it comes to the uh the revel how how Abraics defend their revelation. So mimmans do give this argument that because Vedas have been preserved so meticulously it does not seem uh as a forthcoming response that they are like any other book who doesn't which doesn't have an author. No, because those books are not as well preserved and as well traditionbacked as the Vedas are. So they are different from the mundane books written by human that have a human author. This how do you see does I mean the exact copy you see in the Abrahamic world where they want to argue that uh I'm just you know kind of playing a devil's advocate. Let's say that this is what they say that you know what guys that's exactly what you what we've been saying the the nature of the argument is quite similar we are saying that for last 1400 years the oral tradition has been intact the chain exists Quran is unlike any other book uh so do you see the similarity there with the kind of argument is using >> no I think the similarity is with the nyayakas the mimsikas are actually attacking that position they attack the nyayakas on the idea that the the reason for the the the let's say the Islamic and Christian view that the Bible or the Quran is seen as being um sacred and script scripturally supreme or you know valid is because it comes from God. Now the imamas are saying exact opposite. No no no no no this thing isn't not coming from God. It's something like this nature of God you're talking about it doesn't matter because this thing is beyond that. This the vedas themselves are the very fabric of reality.
But this um you know the emphasis on the tradition could we say that uh that this kind of reasoning which depends upon the uh you know the the how how how the tradition is has been well intact uh goes to put a credence on the text is not foreign to this land because mimmana's previous many at least decades before the Abrahamics used a similar kind of reasoning that because our tradition has been intact And we can show you you know we can as far as the memory serves or the tradition itself can testify for its own self that yes we can go back generation before uh to show and to argue that the Vedas even back then they existed and they were claimed as the supernatural uh you know or or expressing the divine reality. So this emphasis on tradition do you not see how similar it is with the uh you know that has been there among the da tradition where they start off if you ask them prove the Quran is word of god they'll say obviously the one argument would be because it is authored by god the other argument to escape circularity they would say uh look the how well Quran has been preserved or look at our isnad or the chain of narration that's similar to what the mibansikas are saying and mammanag are saying before uh the Islamists or the Abraics incorporated it in their politics. So >> yeah I mean so I would say it's there are similarities without a doubt. Uh I mean but I I think the details on this would matter. Um because what what the imams are not saying is that because this is a preserved word of God that it is true. What they're that's a different statement the what the imams are saying is even by the way because allow for the fact that the veda has been lost >> and in fact the veda has been lost before right there in each yuga kalpa this thing you know this this cycle occurs right the vedas have gone away we don't have the full vas we're limited vdas um so their their bigger issue is not and this is the difference is is they're just saying hey these are injunctions that we have to follow. Why do we have to follow them is because they're authorless. They're eternal.
They're they're because they're and this is important for the nature of also when we talk about pmana what we talked about earlier which is where does shabda sit in the pana theory. Where does its power sit? And this I think is a big difference between the Abrahamic traditions and and also the the Hindu tradition is because prataka anumana have primacy in things of this world right my vision or my senses are more important than shabda for this world things right the only area that shabda has any sort of power is what they would call um adrashta or unseen which is can be things of like you know unseen connections between let's say karma if I do a yagya today you know how do I know that uh you know uh you know there's a karmic consequences they come up with a theory called aurva and that that theory talks about this nature of the effect playing out over time and it's unseen um and then the other element that by the way that also applies to things like the vantins take that also and then apply to brumman right how do we know why the the why is veda important because that's the only way we can know Brahman right the veda is the only way we can know Brahma and the other area is dharma like we can't know dharma through inference or or uh we can't know dharma through like we can't see dharma like you know there's this thing you know king kong and I have talked about before it's not as if the the dharma comes out saying here I am here I am look at me um and follow me it's it's comes out through a a text that is passed down in the tradition. So again uh this is where the I would say the difference is whereas the the the biblical and the Quranic is saying something absolute about the nature of itself and it's God. The imam says are they're they're doing a bigger thing but they're making a smaller claim. They're making a claim about you should just do this act. You should do you should follow these rules. Now the vidans will take it up and make it into a much bigger like uh uh uh central element of their of their engagement with uh Brahman right by the nature of God. Um so I think there's that's the area I would see some difference. King Kong Vene go ahead.
>> Yeah. um uh you know whether you want to do it now or you know I just wanted to talk about the nature of how Miman Sakas or especially Kumarila sees the shda being transmitted and and the nature of the statements. So you want to like jump into right now? So I think that would parse out a lot of >> and also yeah and also if you guys could take my earlier question regarding the metaphysical grounding of these mantras like where are they grounded for the mimmanas what is the nature of the grounding are the abstract entities like numbers and uh and others. Um >> yeah. So when you mean grounded, do you mean um how do you define? Because like for example, are you saying something akin of well the Bible is grounded in God?
Is that what you're kind of trying to say?
>> Right. So So by grounded I mean um like how do we make sense of their ontology?
That's that's basically what I'm trying to uh you know trying to dig at here because when when I say god grounds or god's consciousness grounds we can understand that god sees these mantras eternally so the answer is there how the mantras are being grounded for the vidant it makes sense for the theist it makes sense but mimmanas because they are non-theists like where are they hanging in midair or there's something the infamous akashic record which Tesla talked out uh so are we going to bring >> I don't think it's a kashic record I I think what it is is this these phenomes exist in the very nature of reality and so when they're observed or or seen by the rishies are brought into like for example like >> is it is it mukanda sorry for interrupting is it something similar to the uh the realm of ideas can we like find some similarity with Plato's forms ideal forms I so I would say this at a high level sure but the problem with the realm of ideas and forms is like you know one's a a perversion of the other right in some sense one's a degraded version right there's this ideal the realm of ideas things are exactly the perfect chair exists right in the realm of ideas and everything that exists in our world in the form is not that perfect chair but it's kind of like a reflection or a a um a lesser version right in in of of that ideal form so or ideal um it's not the same because the Vic idea is just this is the nature of the existence right so when when we when the Vedas talk about let's say um you know Indra killing vitra as part of the yagya you know what they're what what they're talking about is these shabda these phenomes that exist that are playing out causing this ritual to And so the ritualization of that action is playing out the same as the phenomes.
>> So uh if I may >> Yeah. So so the mimmana tradition is basically a commentarial tradition that is based on the the jamini sutras or the purvaimmansa sutras.
Right now you have different commentaries of Prabakara of Kumar but the earliest is that of Shabara. Right. Shabbaras Swami.
Now Shabara Swami interestingly like as you said you know when the Mansa tradition is primarily a non-theistic tradition. It's not atheistic in the sense it is you know there's only the physical material world but it is non-theistic in the sense that they would give profuse arguments. Kumarila would refuse arguments against Ish is right but also defend uh rebirth karma uh the apurva nature of the yas the eternality of the vedas as well as other realms that can be that that exist or rather subjective states of experiences after death. Now when shabara is you know talking about the nature of the dvas for the deities because each hymn of of the way the samita is dedicated to a particular deity right uh sometimes the deity would be the rishi also the rishi being the cognizer the seer the dvata the deity being to whom it is dedicated right and the chanda the meter being in what meter the mantra is uh you know coming forth now shabara says that or within the you know pervasive himsa tradition The dvata is basically the nama or the name of the dva right. So there is no Indra outside of the word Indra right or you know when we are calling you know then the power of let's say that dvata whatever that means is that utterance right and then he goes on to divide what kind of dvas are there and so on and so forth regarding the references or regarding the number of the hymns or the type of the hymns or in what sacrifices it's used. However, Shabara makes a very small point as the project is to defend the the Vic traditions against the Buddhist. Shabara says that even if someone says that the DVAS have power or let's say somehow the shabda becomes a thing in itself with acts power, right?
There's some kind of conscious agency such as that within it. Shabara says that we have no problem with it because you know whether you accept that or not our project is something different right so there's a certain open space for that now you ask that where is this you know this these these meanings or these sounds fmes within the you know the death and the birth of a universe the fun fact is that Kumar actually says that there is no dissolution or creation So there's an eternal chain of gurus and shishas that goes back right there was never a beginning. Now the question comes is that within the samitas you know you have these statements praapati brooded or papati you know did tapas and adni surya and you know why emerged and from them he milked out the rick the salmon and the yajush right or you know at the beginning there was uh the one who or or Ishwara who who you know the the self that that was brooding over and he thought that you know I want to be many. So Kumar says these are our tawadas right these are these are just you know instances in history or just you know these are our tawadas you know trying to force you or trying to coax you to say that you know as you know they also do this so and so you must also do this yakya because most of these you know aanas or narratives are precede certain you know sacrificial axioms or formulas so that's Kumarila's understanding that there is no dissolution there's you know absolute like pallaya so to speak like right he says that we can think of these cycles as changes of summer changes of monsoon right that these different times but there's no absolute deluge so to speak and therefore as the guru teaches the shisha the the the teacher to the disciple and so on and so forth the relation between the word and the object is maintained in that order right so if and therefore he also says that if says this at start any start he has to connect the words with the object which cannot be done right and then of course there's no ishwara right so that's their attack onto the nayaka uh doctrine of of of the vedas so does that uh does that kind of you know answer your question >> uh I mean in a in a way it does uh in a say there's more to the question but something uh I'm glad that you mentioned and brought this up. So we can basically say that the mammana is saying if the naya doctrine or naya philosophy of language or naya's you know the understanding of the authorless not authorlessness my bad how Vedas are basically word of god if that is to be given credence then kind of nullifies their entire uh system of language because then words and their meaning become arbitrary. arbitrary in a sense that they would be grounded in how ishwara wants to define a particular word which goes counterintuitive to how the words as mukunda mentioned they are connected directly with the roots so if they are intr intrinsically connected with the roots then ishwara cannot you know step in between and give a different meaning to it let's say ishwara is the one who starts uh conjoining words with their meaning then that's purely arbitrary But language is not arbitrary because they have an intrinsic root. Each word has an intrinsic root. And so if language is not arbitrary then the naya uh you know entire philosophy of language and this argument that Vedas are authoritative because their word of god collapses. So that's that's a very crucial point that you made you know helped us helps us understanding the debate between the sikas and the aikas. But the question that I was asking was more to do with the ontology of how do we see uh these mantras. Perhaps my postulation will be that we take the platonist view that in west we take about around the numbers. So the number one the number two or any mathematical proposition uh they exist by themselves and they are abstract abstract realities. So you have on one side the concrete realities like the concrete objects this microphone the laptop and everything around us and then you have the abstract objects they have ontological status as well. So we can say in the vimmana view or in the vdantin view I think shankara in his bhasha argues this exact thing he says and you know there's a way how entire thing connects with metaphysics. So Shankara says that before the word is uttered the meaning already exists. So the utterance of the word is not creating the meaning.
Now where does the meaning exist? There can be uh two different proposals to it.
Uh but both of them would kind of entertain the concept of universals sana. So both mimmans and the vantins most of them accept the concept of universals. So meanings are seen as universals. For example, let's take the example of cow. So among all the cows that exist, you have this one universal cowess that runs through and through all those particular instances of cow. In the same way, the meaning the meaning of anything, let's say the meaning of uh the word cow itself. Let's let's take the word cow or tiger, lion, book, whatever, right? Or any any particular proposition, the meaning eternally exists. However, when we utter them, when I say a particular sentence, that sentence is a particular instantiation of that universal which has already and always been existing. So, this is how this entire philosophy of language of the mimanskas connects or gives rise to this uh blooms in the form of this metaphysics where the metaphysics of universals. So each meaning is a universal in itself and this is not something you know people might hear it and they'll be like oh that's bizarre and there's nothing no such thing as abstract objects. Mind you even in west the pioneers of analytical philosophy uh Freda and B button Russell early but Bertr Russell had this exact view regarding meanings. So for them the meanings of each word even words like vinit, mukunda or arnab let's say or or any noun which is a name of a person is also eternal. The meaning of of the name of that person is also eternal and it exists as an abstract object. So that's uh that's how I would try to understand you know how mimias are grounding uh the vic mantras.
>> I think that's exactly how they do it.
um that um it I mean especially Prabakura I think is very close to Fraga in his concept of language that way as being eternals like like so they've soak have made the argument yes the sound is temporary like when I say you know you know or you know venath that sound is temporary for sure but it exists eternally like the sound has a beginning and end but the beneath word and the the shabda which is shabda brahman exists eternally.
We're just calling it into existence momentarily through speech. But this is also the big difference within we have to remember vak and shabda are two different things right is beyond speech itself. It's the very nature of a language. the very nature of of of let's say phenomes or whatever vak is the immediate expression of shabda >> or rather dwani right >> yeah yeah sound that's right >> yeah so >> so where does where does ara fit into this ara by ara I'm trying to >> mean meaning yeah meaning meaning basically >> so so this is interesting because The mimsas uh mimsikas take anything that's not directive meaning not because they take the vdas primarily to be about uh uh duty right what you should do the karma because so kumar takes a position that there's reasons to do karma the veda gives reasons which is fala apurva all these other things well pbakura takes a position ultimately that no just by the very statement That's the reason to do that to do the action. So meaning itself is only matters like it's it's it's like tangential for them right meaning like this um like the shadeds for most are have no intrinsic value to themselves but they have only value as arta for the purposes of the vedas meaning the mat samas do the ritual. So they provide stories or contexts or or secondary material for us to do the ritual or do the dharma. So they themselves have no separate meaning outside of that.
Does that make sense or what?
>> At least >> Oh yeah, it does.
>> Okay, let me see.
>> Shall we move forward? Any other slides?
>> Yeah. So uh I I just uh you know sent you the slide, right? Can you just pull it up because I wanted to like build upon like what Venique said regarding Fraggy or the abstract realm of ideas.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I'm doing it right now. Hold on.
This one. There we go.
Okay.
There we go.
Okay.
>> Right. There you go.
>> Yeah. So, uh Venit uh you you know you address the point right that it maybe the mantras exist as these eternal archetypes or these uh you know the content of the proposition is in this eternal timeless state that the rishies grasp. Right now within the Rigida Samita there's a mantra uh the famous sukta which is you know uh cognized or seen by the rishidatavas it's in mandala 4 the sukta number is 164 and it is also the famous verse from which you get the you know the often misqued mantra ikam satwipra vahudanti the truth is one sages know it in many names. So within the within this long hymn which is very esoteric in its nature the rich the mantra 39 talks about right the rich of the mantras is is in the van is in the ashara that is the non you know nonshara or non um you know moving away or decaying Right. So, eternal >> non-changing. Right. Van the highest voma or the highest peace.
>> That's basically right.
>> Yeah. You you can take that, right? Of course. Of course.
And it says that right where the das are seated on the mantras. So, it's it's very poetic in that you know seeing how these uh you know these these entities relate with these sonic or sound forms. And then it says so he who doesn't know it what will he do and he knows it then he has attained it right so he who know he who doesn't knows this secret what use will this vea be to him but he know he who knows this has already attained it right now now shyana who is the 13th century uh I I guess he's 13th century during the vijayagara empire he he he comments on this right and he he compares the rich as mantras right as on the right side you can see the multiple layers of meanings so within the within the do within the domain of the natural order he compares the richer or with the solar orb right because uh there's also an understanding of the mantras emanating from the sun the gods being the rays because the rays play out so the dvas are also root word div means to play right so there's that connection that's made and axara is the self of that solar orb that is sitting over there because remember this mantra is also for surya right as as a center of all axis he also you know connects this this parame is vikunta as you know shy is an advan he compares this voman or this space nature with brahman right that it's expansive it it contains all things within it it's the ground of all beings So this this highest heaven is basically Brahman and all the Vedas all the mantras as words denoting being the primary denoting or the primary reference of all the mantras being Brahman it's grounded in it and as all the dvas are powers or emanations or you know beings that derive their powers from that even if you take the namansa view that the shda is the dva right even in that case the dvas are residing in this parame right in in this axara in this imperishable realm from which all things are issuing forth and and and the rishies are are capturing it recognizing it in their in their mind right so this is and this is from within the samita so that's why I wanted to bring this out right to to show that within the Vedas itself within the even if I take the conclusion that the mandala one is is a later addition within the corpus even that early it is understood that there's this transcend ental nature to these mantras right and of course China then goes to you know the the advatin path of following the footstep of his guru Shankarachara that uh you know he who doesn't know this what will he do so over there he he takes this as he who doesn't who thinks or he who doesn't know the true meaning of the vedas he thinks that this is only for the rituals right so maybe it's a tongue and cheek kind of you know like an attack towards the mansakas that you know you think rituals are the >> it's also Funny because I think so I think mimsas or any of these traditions were never separate traditions in their own meaning like so for example there you know there's a great article written by Al Alexander Uskov uh which uh it's it's about this mimsa scholar named partasi mishra who who is vimamsika but he has this deep connection to Krishna so He still is probably somewhat of Adantin, right? So like what I'm trying to say is they're probably a lot of the mumsikas were probably mimsicas for the purposes of their philosophical positions and what they put forth and argued against these other people. They probably had the other positions within within that too because a lot of times within the Indian tradition you use arguments just to defeat your opponents even though you might have similar positions to your opponents but a different way to get there. So um I think it's important to to think about this is more about like refining one's one's thinking rather than saying you're your positions utterly done because there they probably share some of it >> of course the mimmana positions and I mean all schools right sanka yoga naya they blend into each other they build upon each other's foundations being a very famous example right and even even within the so if you take the Sri Vashnava tradition makunda even there and and I'm pretty sure it's also those case within the dwita tradition that there are mimmans who are shwaradin mimmanakas they accept ishwara they build upon the you know the the theories of kumar prahakara right they they take what's what's useful what's what's you know going with their overall view and then they incorporate it right and even when you look into kumarila's you know tantra or he doesn't like he doesn't completely go like you know these are all like words and words and words phone names so when it comes to the case of like uh the the the smitis or the thihas he does give arguments that you know draati is or or arjuna or or krishna are are superhuman entities right uh they born from fire and so on and so forth right even if he takes it as an aravada now maybe there's there's always a question that how does he understand this maybe within the realm of the story he understands these as superhuman entities or he can also as he believes in souls I think it is not foreign or it is not antithetical to the mimmana's position that even if there's no Ishwara there are these superhuman beings or these highly elevated souls who have reached what they reached due to their purva karma pulvajma karmmas and so on and so forth right so you see this this this blending and this kind of malleability ility of these fuzzy fuzzy borders between these sumpraas right how how they blend in and out. Uh another another point that I wanted to do just a short one within the same hymn right as this entire hymn is is even you get the the the mantra the two birds sitting on the same tree from the same sukta right dwasupjasaka is from this uh sukta over there within I'm forgetting the exact verse number there's there's a line that says that speech has four parts right only one is spoken amongst men that three are only known to the Brahman or the Brahmanas, right? And this is also continued within the the the shaktad sha agama tradition and also you will find this within the tantras that para pashanti madhyama uh I'm forgetting the another one uh you can like if you can correct me I'm forgetting the other one but the basic idea is that if speech is a cow right the speech is is is like the vak is like a cow that that gives forth birth to these four names right it's four amongst its four legs only one is revealed to man that is manushikawak right the ones spoken by manushiaas right humans the three which are which you can thought think of as cognitive or or metal linguistic understanding of of of reality is beyond this human speech and what the vedas are is that the rishies understand this at the metal linguistic level as vinit would say they they would cognize these structures and you can you can you can even take the sananka view right you don't need to take the view that the the reality is without you know any deluge or recreation right you can you can also take that there's a deluge and recreation without any issue and yet understand that these are these are graspings of the sages of these cognitive structures or these abstract struct structures and they then put it into human speech so that you know one can understand yeah >> yeah I I mean you're talking about para pashanti madyyama and vyakari Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah. which is you know this idea from from the highest level it ends up into you see it right it's like beyond and then pente means there's this the sight of it and then from that comes into this concrete more concrete form in one mind in one's mind around like not just the vision but it becomes concrete words that's mima and for mima vakar is the expression and that so that's the flow of like the way that the imam as and then later the the the very thunder traditions take that in also to explain the flow of Brahman in his expression or you know of uh uh that way which is by the way this all correlates somewhat to like this concepts of you know um you know the waking state geography ship um uh then you know um thudy I forget the the swap >> swap out then yeah so those four states correlate to states of speech. So not I mean when you start looking at the these these traditions you start seeing how deeply um um parallel they are right in some sense they're all talking about the same reality but from different angles right speech repres representing Brahman as the flow of of speech sleep representing Brahman through his perceptual states you know this is very fascinating like it the way that these traditions have developed thinking about uh Brahman this world all these things in different ways but they seem almost complimentary to each other so it's I think it's pretty interesting um okay so now we have a a decent sense of what we are two doing with Shubda here right so now the so let's ask this question we've gotten to the stage where we've seen like there similarities between some of the you know let's Quranic and biblical but also vast differences in how we think about Shabbda. Now where like I said before we talked about how Shabda has authority when it comes to let's say Dharma and Adashta um how does that compare to the Christian Muslim world their traditions like I would say I mean from my perspective it like if a if a Vic passage and the Shankai brings this up and I think you know Um we've discussed this before when a passage says vic passage says oh fire is cold then but your perception or your your experience is fire is hot what wins so you know what so u there's this uh a debate goes on back and forth between the philosopher tradition and the calamist tradition within the Muslim world so the philosopher tradition wants to put akal over nakar. Basically uh if I have to use the corresponding word I could say anuman over the shabda.
Obviously I mean they do not capture the exact thing that we mean by anuman but nevertheless as an example.
>> Yeah sorry >> buddhi over shabda right akal intellect buddhi.
>> Yes buddhi. Yes. So the philosopher tradition basically places buddhi over knuckle or verbal testimony or the revelation. The calamist however because they are orthodox and they have this duty of uh being true to what the tradition or the sunnah of the prophet says they in the hierarchy of these again you know means of knowledge prammanas uh they place knuckle over buddhi right so the revelation trumps any other kind of uh percept any other kind of means of knowledge which is very different from our tradition because as you as the example was given by Lukunda and Shankara says this in I think 17th chapter of the Gita he says even if thousand >> 18 18th chapter >> 18 chapter yeah even if thousand shris were to say that you know fire is cold or not hot or you know stuff like that you don't have to believe in it this is completely unheard in any other tradition right this kind of commitment to empiricism is only found within the Hindu fold or in the in the fold of the Indian tradition tradition as far as Abrahams are concerned it's completely alien because for them the word of God is the you know is the final thing or the final mark and you nothing can trump that nothing can supersede that so even if certain text appears in the Quran which apparently goes against the perception at max they would say well Quran is not a scientific text it is not the text about empirical world. So we can interpret it in a different way, right? But they wouldn't go to the length of how our rishies are going where they're saying we can choose the other pmana over the revelation. This is completely you know yeah >> but that's built into the pmana ideology right each pmana has its area of where it is supreme where no other pmana can defeat it right it's just can't be defeated like no matter what what anumana says to me you know this this glass or bottle I'm touching I'm feeling it exists you can't tell me it doesn't exist you You could tell me it's composed mostly of of of air or or no space. It's it's it's spaceless. It's all you could tell me all that and it's maybe it's true at one level, but it's not true to my experience. So again, this is where Pratika is is is clear is part of part of what the pman system is saying is the world out there is multi-aried, multiaceted and it's multi-noable.
So just because physics says this is the case doesn't make it the case. It's the case from that perspective.
But from my experience it's different.
Someone else might have a different experience and that's going to be true too. It's but it's not ultimately rel relativistic in the sense of it's all like relative in the sense of there's no objectiveness to it. These are all objective things but they're just gradations and and different objectiveness. Right? Again it goes back to the elephant and the six blind men feeling the elephant and touching it.
The same analogy applies to the pmanas.
The pmanas each give you some element of reality.
It might it gives you the nature of the world in the way we interact and experience it. But shabda gives you nature of what's beyond and and what's actually deeper inside you. Right? like the the spiritual core of one's being and and also the ontological core of reality which you can't learn necessarily from just observing or from inference. So given that I think there it's pretty straightforward to me that the system of pmana is a stronger better system than I think the biblical reasoning does or Islamic reasoning does because it it it clearly puts the categories of knowledge into areas where they they seem best to fit.
Now the flip side I will say is that the the Muslim argument could be the case.
Well, why should I trust my experience when there's an ultimate perfect being who's telling me what it is? So maybe what I'm experienc, you know, delusion or illusion or or just uh a minor perspective. Maybe the earth is really flat. I'm not saying that's what they're saying, but just let's just say it says that. Um how do I know? Yes, everything all my senses and everything else tells me it's round, but the perfect being just told me otherwise.
Right. I mean that's a a valid position to take I would say.
>> Go ahead. K.
>> Yep.
>> Yeah. So uh within the at least within the mimmansaka the the advan and even the sashnava tradition there's a strong and you know you can you can get such statements even within theasas and such that uh you know inf inference pratyaka is as important if not more within the domain of of this empirical ical reality than shabda right or or if pratyaka is contradicting shabda then pratyaka takes precedence at least within this domain now the argument that ramanuja gives is that look if you say that of course it's directed towards the advita position that if you say that you know shda says if the vedas say that all of reality is just this one undifferentiated blob of consciousness i aka brahman Right? And as the scriptures say, I'm going to accept. You do realize that the accessibility of the scriptures that you're going through is through prataka.
Right? So denying pratyaka would be chopping off on the the branch on which you are sitting and trying to grab the fruit because the shabda itself is perceived through your prataka. Whether you do that or the rishies do it, right?
is it's filtered through pratyaka. You you you can't deny pratyaka and put shabda over that.
>> Well, I mean and here's a response I think a Buddhist I mean the Buddhists do this but I think Shankara does too which is well it's upaya it's it's simply the vedas and this they're simply a tool for me to get to to the top. Like I'll give you analogy and I've used this before. I want to get to my roof. I can use a ladder but once I get up to the roof the ladder means nothing to me anymore. I could kick it down. It doesn't matter.
It doesn't have any reality to me anymore. I'm on the roof. So similarly, I think from a adan perspective would be like, well, once you have Brahman nature or you you've you've you've achieved it or you've been aware of it and you have this mti the vedas actually are just like the latter. They they're not necessary. They're not needed. So for the purposes of my actions to get there, sure they're useful, but they're not the ultimate.
>> Yeah. So Rammanuja would uh you know attack the entirety of you know the the the higher level lower level of realities cuz you know he would think that reality or existence is this flat thing right there's no gradation there's no like more real less real but even even if I take the point he would ramana would say that even when you're approaching the ladder to get onto your rooftop or your attic you're using you're perceiving you're knowing it through the protection that's the only means to even get shabda that's a primary means Right? So if shabda says that your pratyaka is wrong then there's something wrong with you or your understanding of the shabda. Right? Because to cognize even this sentence you need protection.
Now having Yeah.
>> No. Go ahead. Go ahead.
>> Right. So uh even Shankara in his 18 uh in his basha of Gita 1866 if I'm not wrong you know makes the statement that even if uh hundred of SRI statements say that agn is sheala snikda that fire is cool or cold. uh even if thousands such statements are found in the Vedas he's supposing that such statement is found then pratyaka would gain prominence in that domain because each prammana has their scopes their domains within reality to give you knowledge or to get you to the true understanding of that particular domain but he goes forward he says that then that vakya has to be or the srudi statement has to be reinterpreted or understood in a different manner because otherwise it would both you know go against pratyaka as well as shruti because you know shruti does gives precedence or gives you know power to prataka within this domain right so that's that and then I think I think this is this is also you know said by mimmansa mmansakas I'm forgetting exactly whether it's kumar or prahakara but this understanding of pratyaka being supreme in the domain of of of of let's say immediate apparent empirical reality is is very Well understood. Yes, Venit you you heard your like.
>> Yeah, very quickly. I mean what do we mean when we say that you know prexia has a precedence over other prammanas.
So we are not saying that in any case pra has a precedence over other pmanas.
This is not what is being claimed. The claim is in the domain where pretextia rules or oversees all the promeas in that domain if something has been established by prexia then neither shrutin nor adumana can overrule that however if there's another domain where prtika has no access then as bizarre as it may sound if something shri claims about that domain uh even if it is against common sense even if it is you against the established norms of pretextia. Not a particular prataka itself but the norms of pratika for example you have not seen flying let's say you have not seen assuras right in the in the normal domain of pratika we don't see assuras but that doesn't mean oh well if shi talks about assuras then it contradicts pratika no it is not contradicting pratika for praia to get contradicted there should be a subset within pratika uh something uh you know completely nullifies any possibility of there being an assura who looks like a human but is not a human is celestial in nature or at least extra earthly in nature. So if the domain kind of goes beyond the domain of protection then the shi cannot cannot be overruled on the basis of protection. The shi has the most authority in that particular domain basically in the in the unseen.
>> Yeah. Absolutely. That's correct.
Correct.
Okay. So, we've done a I think a pretty decent job so far on on Sha Pmano. I mean, what do you guys what do you guys in the audience think? Have you guys learned a lot? Has this been interesting? Um, you know, Yeah. I mean, is there things we missed? I'm sure. I mean, I'm a thousand% sure we missed things, but what do you guys think?
>> Yeah, I think we can go to the different degrees in short if you want to. the and theatika I think that would also light on how yeah >> I mean is that something we should do this time around do you think or is that a whole that's a whole another like ex Jesus is going to be like >> yeah yeah but can we quickly give a you know a little tying to the argument given by Madwa if you are interested I've made the slide as well >> oh yeah yeah yeah >> yeah let's let's bring that up I think I have it >> so look at after after Venit goes over glosses over Madhvachara's argument. I think there are certain questions that has been asked in the comments. So >> yeah, we'll get to that and then you know if people want you know uh we can we can do some more of that. Uh let me make sure okay >> and then we can have a discussion on a couple of these topics and maybe uh get into Islam and Christianity on this stuff and uh sorry one sec.
I have to close one of these. Go.
I mean, for those who have been following the stream, uh by now it's clear that I am obsessed with Madara in every stream possible. One of his arguments >> are brought up. Yeah, I've noticed that.
All right, here we go.
>> All right, so >> go for it.
>> I mean, we saw the mimmana argument and uh regarding the, you know, Veda's authorlessness and how Vedas are authoritative. Now, what we have here is what I would like to call the moral argument for the authority of Vedas. In west whenever moral arguments are brought to the for they are brought to prove Ishwara or Brahman. Uh quite distinct from the western tendency in eastern philosophy especially in vanta the theistic vanta school they bring the moral argument not to prove Ishwara's existence but rather to argue for the authoritiveness of Vedas. The argument is very simple. If you do not accept uh Vedas as the authority or anything like the Vedas which gives you the knowledge of dharma and a dharma or morality or what is wrong what is you know morally non-justifiable then you cannot reason into the essence of morality. Basically that's the gist of the argument. The promise one argues that dharma and a dharma are things that cannot be perceived. They cannot be established by pratakia. They cannot be established by anumana.
And the only way they can be established where everyone where the entire social practice of morality can make sense is if you have a central book which kind of uh oversees the entire function of morality that takes place. And this is how Madwa argues. Shankara has also argued in the same manner. that I found Madwa's I find Madwa's uh version more formidable for certain reason which I would explain in in a in a short while before that. So this is the argument you have. You start from uh the fact that morality is noncognizable through your senses, right? The moral wrongness and the moral rightness. You need something that accesses some prama that accesses the the unseen territory.
And therefore you need Vedas. Why you can't have a person? Why you can't have ishwara? However, Madwa does not mention Ishwara per se, but he takes this possibility that there can be an omnisient person so and so forth. Uh he rules this possibility out because of parsimony or simplicity. So parsimony is a virtue when you talk about competing theories. You take the one that has less that makes less assumptions. So he says why not you know because you have to make an assumption that there's an omniscient person and so and so forth.
He thinks this has in the backdrop has more assumptions compared to the single book assumption of the Vedas. So you postulate Vedas as the book that has in it the essence of you know that can be taken as a ground for your moral practices.
Now the reason why this uh argument uh you know was for me caught my eye because if you compare it with Kant's argument for God's existence something that Madwa mentions by the way this is from Vishnu Vishnuaya it's a famous text of Madwashara so something that Madwa mentions at the very end of this particular argument he says let's say there's a philosopher a nahilist someone like Frederick Nisha and he says you what dharma and the dharma morality are not a thing. They do not even exist.
Uh and in in west or in contemporary meta ethics we call this position as the error theory. So let's say someone is a error theorist and he says you know these these can be explained through evolutionary process. There is no meta meta rightness or meta wrongness regarding moral proposition. They have just evolved. uh because of certain utilitarian purposes and dharma dharma doesn't exist. Basically Madma retorts uh he basically says that if there's a there's a philosopher like that let's say the prototype to be Fred Ignition.
So he would say such a philosopher cannot even say that his own philosophy would result in something because result you have a virtue and then you have the fa of the virtue.
If somebody acts right and if he says that I am acting but the fa of that act may not exist or has no onlogical status or has no you know would not be translated in a form of an effect then madwa says his entire work or his entire philosophy his entire toiling to give out whatever he thinks he's giving out or trying to affect people around him is baseless. So somebody could simply say that because your uh whatever your kar your work your karma would not result in a fala does not have an effect does not have a consequence it's because it is inconsequential your entire philosophy is inconsequential and therefore it is it is like saying nothing because you're not making any difference per se within the schema of philosophy or or the thought or the civilization now why this is interesting so K makes a similar argument he says is if I raify this argument that Madwa makes and kind of you know try to transfigure it in a more formidable manner with the language of modern contemporary ethical dialogue.
So Kant has a similar argument where he says if whatever virtue that you are committing if the virtue does not have a salah if the salah is not necessitated if it is not made necessary by any underpinninging reality then your entire hard work of being morally right or morally apt in your in the whole course of your life will go in vain.
Right? It means nothing. Let's say there's a person A and he has followed dharma to the very tea but there is no mechanism which makes sure that the fala will be given to him will be rewarded to him then his entire process of following dharma is of no use because he will be ending up in the same uh you know at the same position as as a evil person because they both are not getting the falah right so you might as well want to live your life seeking pleasure seeking power exploiting and doing all the thing all the wrong deeds that you want to do because at the end of the day there is no reward for either good acts or the bad acts. So in the same way Madwa also says the same thing if a philosopher does not accept that dharma dharma have a result then his own philosophy does not have a result and if dharma dharma are inconsequential then his own philosophy is inconsequential and it kind of falls on its own head. So this is the reasoning he makes. It does not prove that Vedas are authoritative but it kind of makes it uh challenging to not have an authoritative moral moral guiding text overarching text or which oversees the entire uh moral practice.
So it's it's a kind of a postulation basically that he's making which comes very close to Kant because Kant is also not trying to prove God per se but he's saying if your practical moral life has to make sense then you must postulate God. You must postulate a system which connects virtue with reward. So Vedas has to be there because Vedas are the book through which you know that if you do this karma then this will be the fala. If the karma and fala are not connected then morality is is a sham basically then there's no need to follow dharma dharma or morality.
That's the gist of the argument.
>> Yeah I mean I think that's a practical argument. My my push back would be like well and Let's let's take Sam Harris here, right? Sam Harris would be like, well, I can reason to moral behavior, you know, um I can reason to actions that are beneficially good for everyone.
Doesn't that then undermine the idea of even having a a shda pana here?
I mean you can sure you can but you might as well uh not opt that action and nothing would change. So you're doing you're being moral is completely subjective or based on how you're feeling at the moment. If that is the case then there's nothing I mean the thing with morality or what how the Indian philosophers are seeing it. They see morality as coercive, right?
Coercive in a sense that it coerces the subject towards an act. If morality is grounded in your feelings, then nothing external coerces you towards doing the morally what society considers as morally right. In that case, you might as well not have done that and nothing would go wrong in the you know larger scheme of the cosmos or existence itself. So if Sam Harris performs a moral morally good act if it is out of pure feeling uh then we could place Sam Harris in a possible world where there is exploitation there's corruption and it's quite clear that anyone who who's virtuous instead of meeting a good end uh meets a devastating end right will Sam Harris in that particular world will he still continue being morally upright if he sees that his neighbor uh gets away every time he does an evil deed and is not.
>> Yeah, but that's a different argument for saying why one should accept the Vedas as the source of of behavior.
Well, if you know like if the if the concern is ultimately are we being utilitarian around this because his argument I mean mother's argument is really utilitarian at the end of the day.
It is utilitarian. Yeah. I mean there there's a yeah it is utilitarian. No doubt about that because if you basically saying that if you don't have a central authority that guides morality then the society will will be in shambles.
>> Yeah. So in in that sense >> it is utilitarian. It is al altruistic.
>> Yeah. That's that's the whole point.
That's the whole point.
>> But that doesn't so I guess but that doesn't prove the authority of the vas.
It just says when we should follow it.
>> Yes. And that's that's yes and that's why uh and I rightly so when I pointed it out that it does not by itself prove the authority of the way does >> therefore it should be taken as a postulation like he's postulating that you must presuppose if you have to function you know if morality has to make sense on a practical level you either postulate God or you postulate something like the Vedas.
>> Okay. If not, yeah. If not, then things can go haywire very quickly.
>> Yeah. Okay. Um >> like consider consider entire judiciary, entire legal system going corrupt. Then there's no like the incentive to be moral in that particular world will be lost. So people would rather want to be immoral because they can get away with it than being moral.
>> So yeah.
>> No, fair point. Fair point. Um okay. Uh any anything on this? Uh King Kong >> Kong.
>> Oh yeah. Uh I mean I think I agree mostly on what you guys exchanged regarding the the pragmatic force of Madwashara's argument.
So yeah I think I think that that that suffices.
I just wanted to make another point that you know I just kind of remember it right now that within the uh within the samas itself right it it might not be directed to madwa's argument at the moment but it was directed to you know it is directed to the point that what does the veda says about itself right how how how it's revealed so in a lot of brahmanas specifically brahmana or you know in in the rigita there's there's there's uh these narratives or aanas where the rishies perceive certain mantras right that such and such rishi got a particular chunk of a mantra from such and such data or at such and such time. So the idea that the Vedas are being revealed from this uh transcendental state by an entity or you know by just mere cognition is already there within the corpus. Right? So what the other schools are trying to do is build up their understanding from that.
Now regarding Madhvachara's argument there's a very uh you know like a at the back of my head I can recall uh there's a conversation between Yudisha and Draudi in Mahabharata regarding the efficacy of dharma and Yuddish says that so there's there's a long conversation to and fro I think it's in vaparva where they are exiled and then ydustra says something that if these rules or if these traditions were you know wrong or stuff like that then they would have gone defunct by now right as these memes help people by the very pragmatic use of it they have survived >> I don't know how how it adds to Madvasara's argument but I just see a parallel to it right so >> yeah I I don't know how how much I give credence to well it survived therefore must be true kind of argument. Um I mean I I mean these are moments in time and again our tradition ultimately takes a view that these things will all go away at some point. Miss Ajaki will lose all this knowledge. Does that mean it's untrue then? I mean that the so just because knowledge is lost or or traditions lost doesn't make it not true.
Just because it's maintained doesn't make it true. Right.
>> Yeah. So I think uh there are a lot of like uh Yushra goes on like he tries to pump Dapod's intuition towards like they're all of course you know disheartened after the exile and all of that right so there's this crisis they're questioning Dharma and all. So one of that the arguments that Ira gives is what I said and and of course it's within the pragmatic side of things. Now of course uh within the tradition itself these knowledges are lost across time period and then again they're resuscitated by Ishwara which reminds me of the fact that uh you know so this this might you know we need another stream for this but I feel that within the vanta tradition whether you take shankara madwachara or ramanuja I think they blend in the aarosa nature of the vedas the eternality as well as ishwara who gives it right so the understanding is that the vedas are like the breath of Ishwara in a in a of course in an analogical sense that right >> they're somehow grounded in Ishwara but Ishwara didn't create it >> at a particular moment in time so whether you think of it as metal linguistic contents uh the the knowledge of Ishwara what Ishwara does is at the start of each cycle or within each cycle he he he allows a particular individual to gain that knowledge so It's not more of so it's not like he's commanding but rather he is the enforcer for that experience to be found or cognized by a such a person right so it's it's not a a literal statement that he's dictating rather he's like blowing it forth within the experiencer to kind of have that experience and I think what that does is bring in a certain subjective uh idea or certain subjective space that each rishi understands these breadths of God uh at different level and different forms uh depending upon their cultural context, time and of course their personality. So yeah, so I just wanted to make that small point caveat.
>> Uh can we guys also take because the discussion has now reached to that question which was asked in the chat regarding the preservation of the Vedas.
How do you guys >> Let's pull that >> up.
>> Let's quickly take that up as well.
>> Yeah, there we go.
Vene, you seem eager. Go for it.
>> Um, my response, I mean, I have debated in the past on this exact point with have come in a conversation with Muslims on this point. My go-to retort used to be that whatever version of the Vedas that exist or that is extent in the in the contemporary or the current time we can claim uh with 100% or at least 99% certaintity that that is preserved and goes back to at least let's take the historical view right let's forget about the uh what the tradition claims because we are in a dialogue where empirical datas are taken readily more often than not. So you can site historians. I used to site Michael Wizzell who who is on record saying that the current extent version of the weather again the current extent version meaning whatever that has been lost has been lost but whatever that has released to us is exactly the same as a tape recorder of what it was when uh around 1500 BC it was first formulated or composed right so and how can we say that we can say that if we take two versions of yajurveda 99% of what is there in one yajurveda which is of the manuscript which is found somewhere in south or another which is found somewhere let's say in Kashmir or in north India if you compare it 99% of them are exactly the same certain differences will be there so certain differences in pronunciation exist for example certain shaka would pronounce purusha as purukha right but that's that's not a you know that's not a difference per se or a kind of a difference that would cast doubt on the extent version's veracity. So the extent version whatever that has reached to us we can say that it is preserved as it is although there has been losses nobody is denying that that would be my response what do you guys think >> go ahead Khan >> oh so um regarding the preservation or rather specifically this question that the shukla and the krishna differs well it differs because uh the the the origin and the purpose with which of the nature of the structure of the text how uh the shukla and the Krishna the black and the white has been constructed uh gives the idea right that there's this tussle between uh yajnawalkka and uh vishampana right and uh I think it's yajnawalkka who uh who spits who womits out this god horrible text. At least that's how tradition understands, right? It it it might have the meaning that there's this tussle between these two schools or rather there's uh the difference in opinion on how to uh structure the text.
So then goes to Surya right the sun god and through his assesses he gets the shukla right now that being the narrative if you if you compare the two shakas the the the most structure of the rituals the mantras and even the brahmanana portions because if you know about the Krishna you would know that within the mantras there are also brahmana portions that has been interposed right that acts as a commentary enter on the particular yagya you can find that across other shakas of other vedas right so a particular brahman passages in the Krishna can be found even in the brahman of the rigeda right so the shakas don't change the core meaning of the the basic overall structure the metaphysics of the ontology of how the ritual is done the shakas are actually divisions based on a particular school of how they see the text now the the the the maj the majority of the text that we have got it already covers over or or gives ample evidences regarding the nature of reality ja brahman uh karma the the the nature of the deities rituals etc right so even if I suppose that a certain mantra is let's say unmanifested from a traditional view and lost from the academic view it doesn't change the the core message or even if not the core the the very apparent ritual day-to-day lifestyle and how they approach the deities is not altered or harmed. Now from a theological perspective right within the I think it's Jinia Brahmana but it is you will find this across all other texts also it said that right the Vedas are infinite and within the within the theological schools of even vanta the understanding is that the Vedas and its primordial state is infinite and as infinite it is ungraspable by uh the ja at least in its current state. Sohwara as his anugura or grace reveals such certain portions of the Vedas or certain parts of the Vedas that he feels is necessary for this particular creation or particular individual right but that doesn't change the the message or the transcendental nature of the of the ur or let's say the transcendental veda which is in Ishwara's conception right and uh so Another difference in certain shakas is that certain shakas would you know expand on a certain mantra uh giving exugesus on that which you wouldn't find in the other one right so it's it's it's like a gloss that's that's kind of added within the structure of the text so yeah that that that would be my understanding mukunda if you can you know shed more >> I mean my my take would be something like this uh let's say there was yajua you know, meaning like all these mantras existed, all these ritual stories, all this stuff existed, but you had two different ways that people redacted it.
Um, and what they kept in it right now we because we possess both and we possess few other ones, these traditions are still surviving. They maintained. So the yjua like the Christiana is it's called I mean you said this the story but it's because Krishna is more mixed like the sections are not clearly delineated you might have a mantra you have the ritual then you have the explanation of it that's kind of how is where the the shukla on this side is going to have the mantra section and then you have theata brahana right which explains that mantra and then you have the uh the the the brea which is after right which is giving that the esoteric position so it's clear delineated it's cleaner um placed organizationally so that's one of the reasons it's called shukla which is clear shukla just doesn't mean wall white or you know it means also clearness or or clarity in that in that sense um so I would say that it's it's not as if They're like different traditions. I mean they are but not like the separate traditions that what they are is different um like categorizations they the way they put the text together.
Now they share most of their most of the text together. I forget it's something like 80 90% of the the material shared but how it's structured and how it's put together is very is different. Um and the steps in the rituals are different too. When you do a certain ritual here, how you do it is a little different than you do in other one. So the idea is like again the pres these are all preserved by the way. So it's not like these are not not preserved. Now the preservation is interesting because the same mantra even though you have these differences in pronunciation there's actually no difference in the mantra itself. Like there's almost no variation there. Like you know where you go this might be like but they have they say differently but the words actually when you break down like the gram and um you know um the sundis and all this other stuff it's almost exactly the same.
So the preservation's there. It's just the way it's preserved is different.
It's is I guess I guess the way we think about this is like I I if if I decide to write let's say if I don't know if you guys ever watched u um what's his name uh the Sherlock the show with you know Benedict Cumberbatch where he creates his mind palace. You know a mind palace is a technique people use to memorize things where you walk through uh uh your house and you lodge information into your mental picture of where the stuff is in the house. But so my house will be different than your house where how I lodge that information, but we still have the same information.
So I would say that's something similar to what's happening here. The information is still preserved. The way it's preserved is similar, but where it's placed is different maybe. I don't know. Does that make sense?
Orange. Blue. Does that answer your question? If it does, thumbs up. Not uh ask away. So, um, do I'll give it a couple minutes. Do you do you guys listening or paying attention either on Twitter or X or on, um, on YouTube or whatever. Do you guys have any questions? Do you guys want to throw them up? You know, we're we're we're here. We're here to talk about them.
We'd love to engage.
>> Hi, Kong. I know you want to respond.
>> Yeah. Um so this is on a light note you know some people would comment I want to hear your vin makunda both of your response that well let's say you know the assumed number of shakas of ruida is 21 or seven whatever right and you know they would do a calculation that if 20 shakas are lost and two shakas are remaining that means 99% of it is lost boom right so now you're left with one or two% so how how or or you know the way there's like thousand shakas Right. It might not mean like literally thousand but rather many, right? And if you have like three in Madina or the Canva, right? And you know, >> yeah, but that's the funny part to me.
It's >> 20% of it's lost, right?
>> Well, that's no but that's not how that works, >> right? You're probably 80 90% is maintained. You've lost maybe 10%.
Right. Because these shakas are not they're they're preserving a lot of the same knowledge information across all the shakas.
So let's say we lose let's say we lose uh we still have we still have like 90% of the preserved.
It's going to be different in terms of its organization, in terms of its uh uh particular chanting, but it's preserved, right?
So, it's not as if each shaka has 100% difference for the other shaka. So, if each shaka has say a couple percentage points difference between each other, then overall you're not losing the entire shakas, right?
They all share the core of 80 80 90% you will maintain the core of 80 90%. It's the you know 10 20% that would that would be lost.
>> Does that make sense?
>> I think I think I think someone can do this also at home you know they can take the ashwana shaka and the shaka shaka that has survived you know these two of rigida right you can see it in IGN I think uh IGNCA's website.
Okay. And you know you can match it and you will see that 97 98% of that stuff is same. The mantras are actually compiled in something called the kila right the kilahhaga or or the addendum right that are that is you know taken from different you know shakas that are now you know defunct or or not non-extent and the funny part is that you will see a lot of these mantras of this kila are also in other vedas like atarva or the yajush right so you see this network that built in and this network this this this web will you know will guide you to understand that there's this coherent kind of body of corpus of text that are interlin with each other. Yeah, we think you you wanted to say something.
>> Yeah. Very quickly just to give an example regarding the shaka and how when there's a difference between two shakas, it should not be construed as something new has been lost. If that shaka is lost because shaka is what branch, right? And and most of the time when the split would occur, they would split the split would preserve the same knowledge with a different wording or a different sentence structure. Not even a different sentence structure but different wordings. To give an example, the famous uh you know the the ground mantra or shloka upon which the entire vishtada or the sharatma bhava doctrine is based. It is found in Bria the mantra I wouldn't utter the entire mantra but it goes like atma. So who whose body the atma is? If you take the madhyandin shaka of the brihyarendic opishad the word is atma say atma whose body the atma is but if you take the other shakas you don't have the word atma you have the word vigyan they mean the same thing right so this is the kind of a shaka we are talking about mostly we see where the content the subject matter is preserved the changes are uh you know they they're basically le lexicon right or lexical changes the changes in words but the meaning is preserved. So as far as the meaning is preserved as as far as long as the subject matter is preserved even if some shaka happened to uh you know happened to got lost in some remote past that does not or should not be construed as oh 90% of the Vedas are lost or so and so percentage of the Vedas are lost.
No the same thing is preserved in other shakas nothing is lost as far as subject matter is concerned.
Yeah, absolutely. interpretation would change and maybe a little bit of uh our theological understanding could change depending upon how we look at Atma versus Vidyan but that also changes over time um again in terms of our understanding but the the meaning inherent to the text is there um okay cool uh looks like we don't have any questions anything else from the audience um and people listening so do you guys have Anything else you want to close off with?
>> I mean no it was it was a blast. It was a great great discussion. Loved it as I mean this is this is becoming a characteristic of our discussions that they are very echic. Good for the audience good for the viewers. They get to lot you know they get a lot of p perspective from different point of views from western from eastern from Buddhist from Islam from Christianity perfect yeah >> yeah can come anything >> yeah it's it was really great like diving into shabda is something I guess is very important to understand how it functions because there are a lot of like uh you know different views uh you know common views like that that sometimes uh you know males the water for a conversation. So I think getting that you know topic on board and then and trying to understand it from different perspectives right that that's that's that's really important and and I love the fact that you know there were these push backs we see different traditions that have historically challenged it and how those traditions do have some form of shda within them right so how how there's similarity as well as this kind of you know like no your shda is like kind of not that great or stuff like this this this This this you know brings a lot of like flexibility room for thinking and and a more deeper understanding of of the traditions are trying to push but >> on the whole I want to end or or rather try to you know highlight the point that >> you know what we talked about this pratyaka kind of having this supreo level within or at least near supreme level within its domain or other brahmanas too is something that is very, you know, very quintessential to the Indic traditions and I would say to also certain traditions of the East, the Dowists or even, you know, Dowist Buddhist influence, Shinto practices, right? how how they see their texts and and and I think I think that that that kind of helps us understand that when Arya right was understanding how eclipses occur. uh so within the shabda of of Mahabharata it's Rahu right that that that engulfs the sun and the moon but Aryabata had no issue in understanding that it it talks about a different domain and and and the eclipse that's we are perceiving the physical causes that is bringing the eclipse in our material reality is something that must be assertion through right and when we will do the advika the bhaltika we will understand how these layers of reality kind of sit upon each other and and and permeate and and influence but then they have their own characteristics. This is something which is very flex which makes the tradition flexible gives room for other epistemical modes of gaining knowledge and as with the advancement of empirical science there's always room always space to understand it within the traditional view.
>> Oh yeah. keeping in respect that the domain of pratyaka is not marred by you know because my god said so right >> yeah I I yeah I'm next week or when we maybe next week or week after I don't whenever we do this I think it's going to be really interesting to go into advikyatic and then and then we'll add in um you know adiagnik and then the the tantric views that connect it because I think this is in this way is one of the most unique things in uh ex Jesus across the world in a way that I think no other tradition preserves at all. Um so I'm excited about that. But yeah, so thank you guys. I mean this is great. It's fantastic. Uh our audience, our listeners, uh thank you guys for joining us and listening. Um man, I just wish more people were interested in this stuff, you know. I was just looking at Twitter, you know, and uh I'm seeing people on like Abby Chada's podcast or whatever. He's got like 800 900 people watching his live stream. Um, and he that guy doesn't he I mean he's whatever, but like in my worldview it's like at least the things we're talking about are structured and based on texts and based on critical thinking. I think there's too much too much too many people going and listening to things about their own culture and traditions that are all about like slapping each other on the back and petting each other's shoulders and not truly engaging in ideas, you know. Um, and I and I hope this over time this grows and people are interested in in um actually learning about what tradition says or actually learning about what text says and thinking it through critically, right?
Um that's >> yeah it would grow.
>> It would grow. I mean the the the thing is that we shouldn't get you know we should not get more demotivated. Let's see.
>> Oh I'll I'll keep doing this all day every day every week. I'm not concerned about that.
>> We have to keep the consistency on and people will will start getting connected. The traction will come soon.
>> Yeah. And I I'm hopeful. Um you know I've been podcasting for few years.
We've we've grown. Um I appreciate this guys. So this is something that's needed. Um and I hope you guys have also on the uh audience learned a good amount or interested more about chuba brahman and chubda as a pmana and um panas on the whole. I think this is cool stuff guys. I mean this is interesting. It's going to really um think change the way you think about the world. All right.
Thanks everyone. Thanks Kong. Thanks Venique.
All right. Okay. Hey, hold on. Let me I want to Getty yet one mile.
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