Sramana Tradation

Author(s): G C Pandey
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 78

Śramanic Critique of Brāhmaṇism
Buddhists as well as Jainas have attacked these formulations of the orthodox Vedicists in many ways. The Buddhists argue that the validity of knowledge is not a constant feature of knowledge, which proves that the causes producing knowledge are not the same as those which produce its validity or invalidity. As for the eternity of the word it is sufficiently disproved by the consideration that words are produced and hence cease to be, anityaḥ sabdaḥ kṛtakatvāt | Again, it is neither possible to prove the beginninglessness nor the uninterruptedness of Vedic study. Besides, the authorship of the Vedic hymns is found to be ascribed to sages. The Vedas refer to particular persons and places and hence could not be prior to these. What is more, the Vedas preach faulty doctrines and hence cannot be regarded as authoritative.
sambhavyate ca vedasya vispaṣṭam pauruṣeyata kāmamithyäkriyāprāṇihimsāsatyābhidhā
tatha ||'
'The human authorship of the Vedas may be clearly surmised from the fact that it speaks of passions, violence and falsehood'. Like the Tattvasangraha, Prabhacandra's Nyayakumudacandra also deals at length with the Mimamsaka orthodoxy about the Vedas. The argument that recognition proves the identity of Varnas, is held to be unreliable because it mistakes similarity for identity. That such recognition is mistaken is proved by the perception of the word being produced and ceasing to be. That the word is able to convey a stable meaning does not mean that the word itself is an identically stable entity. Different words serve the same function by virtue of their similarity. As to the Mimāmsaka assertion that the utterance of the word is not the produc tion but the manifestation of the eternal word, such an assertion really suffers from a petitio principii. There is no reason to suppose that the word exists prior to its utterance.
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Again to argue that the Vedas have no author because none is remembered is to adduce a reason which is unproven and non-existent in the subject or Pakṣa. The probandum or Apauruşeyatva belongs to the Vedas while the reason Kartuḥ smaraṇābhāva does not belong to them. Besides, that someone should fail to remember the authorship of the Vedas $-9