[Advaita-l] apauruSheyatva of the Veda

[Venkatraghavan S]

Namaste,
Someone recently had shared with me for my comments, a facebook article
that referred to Koenraad Elst's rebuttal of apauruShyetva of the veda.

The facebook article is here:
(
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02hyqN6immK6tc3NpiLFCsQkHp372H3zmDuUHwcCvxaBRMQLUUqpn5iBmqQBghrGo3l&id=100008111554860&mibextid=Nif5oz
)

I had initially sent a version of the below email in a personal
correspondence. Thought it would be useful to share it with the group as it
may be of interest.

*******
The facebook article does not appear to have any arguments, rather there
are only assertions. What is the proof given for pauruSheyatva?

The term apauruSheya means that the words of the veda were not composed by
a human being by understanding the meaning through other sources of
knowledge - ie it is not a case of artham buddhvA shabda rachanA. The words
were received in a never ending line of guru shiShya-s and even the RShis
associated with each mantra are not held to have composed it, they are
simply mantra draShTa-s , not mantra kartA-s.

In fact, the pUrvamImAmsa sUtras of Jaimini itself claim that Vedic words
are eternal - unlike the claim made in the FB article, it is not Kumarila
Bhatta who came up with apauruSheyatva to support him in his argument with
the Buddhists, it was stated by the sUtrakAra himself.

For example, the pUrvamImAmsa sUtra - AkhyA pravachanAt (1.1.30) - holds
that the names of the RShis associated with a rescension are not because
they composed it, it is because those RShis expounded on the vedic
rescensions.

The sUtra - parantu shrutisAmAnyamAtram (1.1.31) - holds that proper names
in the Vedas are not names of people, there are common nouns and any
similarity is only a similarity of sounds (some examples will be shown
below).

Thus the writer of the FB article is mistaken when he says that Kumarila
Bhatta invented the apauruSheyatva of the Veda to support his intellectual
battle with the Buddhists - this idea is mentioned in the sUtra-s by
Jaimini itself.

The writer of the FB article says that words of battle in the veda can be
interpreted as a report of a battle witnessed. And cites the consonance of
the words of the Zend Avesta with Vedic arthavAda passages to make the
claim that both the Vedas and the Avesta are reporting an event. Because
they are reporting an event, the Vedas cannot be eternal and apauruSheya as
alleged by the Hindus. However that is merely an interpretation, not proof.

1) According to us, the arthavAda occurring in the Vedas is not a news
report. That is, the rishi is not recording an event that he heard of and /
or saw, rather, he is recording the words themselves. The reference to the
ten kings battling is also dubious - The mantras related to this supposed
battle occur in the seventh maNDala of the rigveda, attributed to vasiShTha
RShi. Scholars allege that the plausible tribes that battled were the
Purus, Yadu / Yaksu , Matsyas, Druhyus, Pakthas, Bhalanas, Alinas,
Vishanins, Sivas, Vaikarna, and Anu.

However, a read of mantra 7.18.7 and its commentary by SAyaNAchArya
indicates that the words Paktha, Bhalana, Alina, Vishani and Shivas (five
of the supposedly 10 kings) are not tribes at all but various participants
in a vedic sacrifice.

This is the mantra.
आ प॒क्थासो॑ भला॒नसो॑ भन॒न्तालि॑नासो विषा॒णिन॑: शि॒वास॑: । आ योऽन॑यत्सध॒मा
आर्य॑स्य ग॒व्या तृत्सु॑भ्यो अजगन्यु॒धा नॄन् ॥
The commentary by SAyaNa is as follows:
पक्थासः पथा हविषां पाचकाः भलानस भद्रमुखा । भलेति भद्रवाची अलिनास अलिनाः ।
तपोभिरप्रवृद्धा इत्यर्थः । विषाणिनः कण्डूयनार्थं कृष्णविषाणहस्ता । दीक्षिता
इत्यर्थ. । शिवास शिवाः यागादिना सर्वस्य लोकस्य शिवकरा: यागेन हि शिवं भवति
लोकस्य ।

पक्थासः - those who cook the offerings in the sacrifice
भलानसः - those who speak the auspicious words
अलिनाः - those who have not practiced austerities
विषाणिनः - those bearing the horns of the black deer, for scratching, ie
the dIkshita-s, ie those who have undergone the ritualistic purification
for the sacrifice called the dIkshA (The dIkshita-s are not permitted to
scratch themselves during the time of the sacrifice, unless with the horns
of a black deer)
शिवासः - those who do good for the world through the performance of
sacrifices

The previous mantra 7.18.6 refers to one further supposed tribe, the
Yakshus - पु॒रो॒ळा इत्तु॒र्वशो॒ यक्षु॑रासीद्रा॒ये मत्स्या॑सो॒ निशि॑ता॒
अपी॑व । श्रु॒ष्टिं च॑क्रु॒र्भृग॑वो द्रु॒ह्यव॑श्च॒ सखा॒ सखा॑यमतर॒द्विषू॑चोः
॥ but again if we look at the commentary of the word Yakshu by SAyaNa, he
translates this to be यक्षुः यज्ञकुशलः - he who is skilled in the sacrifice
- and not a tribe at all.

This is in fact referring to a king called Turvasha, skilled in the
sacrifice, who destroyed the city of the Matsya-s. The Brigus and Druhyus
were his allies, but he was defeated by Indra.

As can be seen, the view that this maNDala is reporting some historical
battle between ten kings is itself flawed - the words that supposedly refer
to the ten tribes in fact refer to various participants in the sacrifice.
There is a reference to a battle - but it is not a battle between ten kings.

2) However, irrespective of the number of kings in the battle, that in
itself is no evidence that such a battle actually took place. In fact, in
Hinduism, the validity of arthavAda in the karmakANDa is in having
ekavAkyatA with a vidhi / niShedha. That is, the story is mentioned not as
a news report, but to impel someone into performing a particular action /
or if occurring in a mantra, used in the actual performance of a sacrifice.
That being the case, it is not the Hindus who claim that this is reporting
a true event, rather it is someone outside the tradition who is doing so.
The Hindus do not hold the story itself needs to have intrinsic validity.
That being the case, why should the story of a battle between however many
kings deny the apauruSheyatva of the Veda?

If it is said that is so because someone outside the tradition holds this
to be representative of an event that took place - Why should the words of
someone outside the tradition have greater value than those inside it? The
same faith that one is denying to tradition is being asked to be reposed in
the words of those outside tradition, without there being a basis for why
the latter is more valid than the former.

The words of those within tradition explain the purpose of these types of
arthavAda - it is in their acting as subsidiaries to some vedic injunction
/ prohibition.

3)The FB writer says that the Vedas being apauruSheya is as fanciful as the
Avesta being apauruSheya. That is not comparing like for like. The Vedas
are apauruSheya because there is no recorded memory of there being an
author of the Vedas. The Avesta is pauruSheya because the followers of
Zoroastrianism themselves say that it is the teaching of Zarathustra.

No one is making the claim that the Zend Avesta is apauruSheya - not even
the followers of Zoroastrianism themselves. So if the story occurs in the
Avesta also why should that deny the apauruSheyatva of the Veda? If I write
a version of the Ramayana based on Valmiki Ramayana, can we say that
Valmiki wrote the same story that I wrote?

Clearly not. Rather, the obvious explanation of there being a consonance is
that the authors of the Zend Avesta translated into Avestan the
pre-existing Vedic hymns in Sanskrit.

Thus a consonance of the story in the Avesta is no basis to deny the
validity of the apauruSheyatva of the Veda, unless there is a sound basis
to either say that the Avesta predated the Veda, or that there is no
possibility whatsoever of the Avesta translating the Veda.

In fact, we know that the Avesta as is extant now was assembled from
remnants of more voluminous manuscripts that were destroyed by Alexander's
invasion of Persia and was then standardized under the Sasanian kings
(3rd–7th century CE) into the Avesta known today.

Thus there is zero chance of the Avesta being apauruSheya, but that in
itself does not negate Veda's apauruSheyatva.

The opponent may argue that our claim that the Avesta translated parts of
the Veda is also an interpretation - that is true. However, while the
opponent makes no basis for his interpretation - that the Vedas and Avesta
both report a battle that really occurred, we have a basis for why our
position that the Vedas are apauruSheya and this is not an actual
historical battle.

Our rationale is that at no point in the history of the entire Hindu corpus
is there the memory of any composer of the Veda. We hold on to
apauruSheyatva of the Veda, but say that Bhagavat Gita, the Ramayana,
Mahabharata, the 18 Puranas, the texts representing the 64 arts, the
Vedangas etc are all  pauruSheya. The reason is that we have a recorded
memory of an author of the latter, but there is no recorded memory of an
author for the former.

When the tradition is willing to concede the validity of pauruSheya
pramANa, there would have been no harm to the validity of the veda had it
been pauruSheya. In fact, as Elst and the writer say, they are willing to
concede the validity of the Vedas even if it is pauruSheya. The Buddhist
was not swayed by the apauruSheyatva of the veda into conceding its
validity either.

Thus, the argument for apauruSheyatva is not to convince either outsiders
or insiders of the validity of the Vedas. Outsiders and insiders who agree
to the validity of the Vedas agree to its validity irrespective of its
apauruSheyatva or pauruSheyatva.

Outsiders who disagree with the validity of the Vedas do not agree to its
validity even if it is apauruSheyatva.

Thus, for us to say that the Vedas are apauruSheya is not because we wish
to prove their validity on the basis of its apauruSheyatva, rather we hold
that they are apauruSheya because we have no memory of an author, and we
would have remembered its author if there had been one - like in the case
of the itihAsa-s and purANa-s. It is too important a shabda pramANa - hence
the very meticulous preservation of the sound through various modes of
chanting such as krama, jaTa, ghanam etc - for us to simply forget an
author.

Elst makes the error in supposing that our view of apauruSheyatva - that
the Vedas do not have a human source - implies that they have a divine
source. He then argues on the basis of this that as many of the mantra-s in
the Vedas have God as the object of the mantras and the human beings as the
subject (tatsavitur vareNyam....dhiyo yonah pracodayAt / tryambakam
yajAmahe etc), they cannot have a divine source - if the Vedas had such a
divine source, God would not have made Himself the object of the mantras -
He would have worded divine statements like the Ten Commandments - "Thou
shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife" - i.e. have the divine as the subject
and the human as the object. As the Vedic mantras are worded the other way
around, i.e. have a human subject and divine object, they must have a human
source who has simply addressed the divine through religious poetry.

However, our view of apauruSheyatva does not imply that the Vedas have a
divine composer - rather, apauruSheyatva means there is *no* composer of
the Vedas. The Veda itself says - अस्य महतो भूतस्य निश्वसितमेतद्यदृग्वेदो
यजुर्वेदः सामवेदोऽथर्वाङ्गिरसः, etc ie the Vedas were the breath of
paramAtma. *Even the Lord is not the composer of the Vedas*. They are a
naturally pre-existent phenomenon - Ishvara does not create them, they
emerge from Him. Even Ishvara does not have the freedom to change the
content of the Vedas in the slightest - that being the case, there is no
necessity for the mantra-s to be worded as commandments from Ishvara down
to humanity.

In every instance of creation after pralaya, Ishvara hands over the Veda in
the exact same form of words, down to the very sound, to Brahma, to use as
the basis for the new creation यो ब्रह्माणम् विदधाति पूर्वम् यो वै वेदांश्च
प्रहिणोति तस्मै. The Veda itself says that Ishvara hands over the Vedas to
Brahma - i.e. the human beings did not compose such a Veda. That Brahma
creates the creation in the exact form as the previous creation - धाता
यथापूर्वं अकल्पयत् . The vedas, specifically their sounds, thus are the
blueprint of every creation, and there can be no change to a single svara,
a single vowel. The Vedas, the life breath of Ishvara, offers the means to
reach Him, and in doing so positions itself from the standpoint of the
worshipper, addressing Ishvara - thus enabling the worshipper to reach
Ishvara. This in itself does not imply that humans created the Veda, thus
precluding its apauruSheyatva, as Elst alleges.

No other culture in the world makes such an astounding claim of their
foundational text. No wonder people are unable to accept it - but their
disagreement does not dismiss such a view.

Regards
Venkatraghavan