z:\ ambedkar\vol 04\vol4 04.indd MK SJ YS 23 9 2013/YS 8 11 2013 137
APPENDIX I 137
“I shall now (says the Mimansaka) clear up all these difficulties. What is meant by this Paurusheyatva (‘derivation from a personal author’) which it is sought to prove? Is it (1) mere procession from a person (purusha) like the procession of the Veda from persons such as ourselves, when we daily utter it? or (2) is it the arrangement—with a view to its manifestation—of knowledge acquired by other modes of proof, in the sense in which persons like ourselves compose a treatise? If the first meaning be intended, there will be no dispute. If the second sense be meant, I ask whether the Veda is proved (to be authoritative) in virtue ( a ) of its being founded on inference, or ( b ) of its being founded on supernatural information? The former alternative ( a ) (i.e. That the Veda derives its authority from being founded on inference) cannot be correct, since this theory breaks down, if it be applied to the sentences of the Malati Madhava or any other secular poem (which may contain inferences destitute of authority). If, on the other hand, you say ( b ) that the contents of the Veda are distinguished from those of other books having authority, this explanation also will fail to satisfy a philosopher. For the word of the Veda is (defined to be) a word which proves things that are not provable by any other evidence. Now if it could be established that this Vedic word did nothing more than prove things that are provable by other evidence, we should be involved in the same sort of contradiction as if a man were to say that his mother was a barren woman. And even if a man were conceded that (in that case) he should perceive things beyond the reach of the senses, from the want of any means of apprehending objects removed from him in place, in time, and in nature. Nor is it to be thought that his eyes and other senses alone would have the power of producing such knowledge since men can only attain to conceptions, corresponding with what they have perceived. This is what has been said by the Guru (Prabhakara) when he refutes (this supposition of) an omniscient author: ‘Whenever any object is perceived (by the organ of sight) in its most perfect exercise, such perception can only have reference to the vision of something very distant or very minute, since no organ can go beyond its own proper objects, as e.g. the ear can never become cognizant of form. Hence the authority of the Veda does not arise in virtue of any supernatural information (acquired by the Deity) in a corporeal shape.”
What is then the reasoning on which this dogma of the eternity of the Veda is founded? The reasoning can be best appreciated if I give it in the very words of Jaimini’s Purva Mimansa.