[Advaita-l] Apoureshyatva - Faith or Logic?

Rajaram Venkataramani rajaramvenk at gmail.com
Wed Jun 20 16:22:18 CDT 2012


Few months ago, I was under the impression that apaureshyatvam can be
established logically. I had a few arguments to support but it was not yet
fool proof. Some of the members expressed the opinion that it is not easy.
Amd it may not even be possible as it is more a matter of faith. I
discussed with a few experts and read further. Though there have been
attempts in the past, it seems they are on the premise that words refer to
classes of objects eternally. For example, go refers to the jati of go
though individual members may take birth and die. Though there was a clear
appreciation of the fact that the individual members of the jati do not
exist before creation and after parlaya, the jati continues to exist
eternally because the individual members existed in a previous cycle and
 will do in the next. But modern science shows that living and non-living
entities evolved gradually rather than get created in one shot. Linguistic
analysis shows that (sanskrit) language also evolved from
proto-indo-european languages. The evidence for evolution of life forms and
language is as strong as that for a spherical earth. Both these challenge
the notion of externality of words and class of entities that forms the
foundation for the argument of veda apoureshyatvam. It makes me wonder if
it is a matter of faith rather than facts and logic. I would like to know
if the scholarly members feel it is a matter of faith or logic please.



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