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bruvat śāstram anupanītayoḥ strī-śūdrayor vedādhyayanam anishṭa-prāpti-hetur iti bodhayati | katham tarhi tayos tad-upāyāvagamaḥ | purāṇādibhir iti brumah | ata evoktam | "stri-śūdra-dvijabandhūnām trayî na śruti-gochara | iti Bhāratam ākhyānam muninā kṛipayā kṛitam" (Bhāg. Pur. i. 4, 25) | iti | tasmād upanitair eva traivarnikair vedasya sambandhaḥ | tat-prāmāṇyam tu bodhakatvāt svataḥ eva siddham | paurusheya-vākyam tu bodhakam api sat purusha-gata-bhrānti-mūlatva-sambhavanaya tat-parihārāya mūla-pramānam apekshate na tu vedaḥ | tasya nityatvena vaktṛi- dosha - śankānudayat | . . . . Nanu vedo 'pi Kālidāsādi-vākya-vat paurusheyaḥ eva Brahma-kāryyatva-śravaṇāt | "richah sāmāni jajnire | chhandūmsi jajnire tasmād yajus tasmād ajūyata” iti sruteḥ | ata eva Būdarāyaṇaḥ(i. 1, 3) “śāstra-yonitvād” iti sūtrena Brahrano veda-kāranatvam avochat | maivam | śruti-smṛitibhyām nityatvāvagamāt | "vāchā Virūpa nityayā” (R.V. viii. 64, 6) iti śruteḥ |“anādinidhanā nityā vāg utsṛishṭā svayambhuvā” iti smṛiteś cha | Bādarāyano 'pi devatädhikaraṇe sūtrayāmāsa (i. 3, 29) “ata eva cha nityatvam" iti | tarhi "paraspara-virodhaḥ" iti chet | na | nityatvasya vyāvahārikatvutsrishter urdhvam samhārāt pūrvam vyavahāra-kālas tasmin utpatti-vināśādarśanāt | kālākāśādayo yathā nityāḥ evañ vedo'pi vyavahāra-kale Kālidāsādi-vākya-vat purusha-virachitatvābhūrād nityaḥ | ādisṛis'tau tu kālākāśādi-vad eva Brahmanaḥ sakāśād vedotpattir āmnāyate ato vishaya-bhedad na paraspara-virodhaḥ | Brahmano nirdoshatvena vedasya vaktṛi-doshābhāvāt svatas-siddham prāmānyam tad-avastham | tasmal lakshana-pramāna-sadbhāvād vishaya-prayojana-sambandhādhikāri-sadbhāvāt prāmānyasya susthatvāch cha vedo vyākhyātavyaḥ

eva |

"Now, some may ask, what is this Veda, or what are its subjectmatter, its use, its connection, or the persons who are competent to study it? and how is it authoritative? For, in the absence of all these conditions, the Veda does not deserve to be expounded. I reply: the book which makes known (vedayati) the supernatural (lit. non-secular) means of obtaining desirable objects, and getting rid of undesirable objects, is the Veda. By the employment of the word "supernatural," [the ordinary means of information, viz.] perception and inference, are excluded. By perception it is established that such objects of sense, as garlands, sandal-wood, and women are causes of gratification, and that the use of medicines and so forth is the means of getting rid

of what is undesirable. And we ascertain by inference that we shall in future experience, and that other men now experience, the same results (from these same causes). If it be asked whether, then, the happiness, etc., of a future birth be not in the same way ascertainable by inference, I reply that it is not, because we cannot discover its specific character. Not even the most brilliant ornament of the logical school could, by a thousand inferences, without the help of the Vedas, discover the truths that the jyotishṭoma and other sacrifices are the means of attaining happiness, and that abstinence from intoxicating drugs" is the means of removing what is undesirable. Thus it is not too wide a definition of the Veda to say that it is that which indicates supernatural expedients. Hence, it has been said, 'men discover by the Veda those expedients which cannot be ascertained by perception or inference; and this is the characteristic feature of the Veda.' These expedients, then, form the subject of the Veda; [to teach] the knowledge of them is its use; the person who seeks that knowledge is the competent student; and the connection of the Veda with such a student is that of a benefactor with the individual who is to be benefitted.

"But, if such be the case, it may be said that all persons whatever, including women and S'ūdras, must be competent students of the Veda, since the aspiration after good and the deprecation of evil are common to the whole of mankind. But it is not so. For though the expedient exists, and women and Sūdras are desirous to know it, they are debarred by another cause from being competent students of the Veda. The scripture (śūstra) which declares that those persons only who have been invested with the sacrificial cord are competent to read the Veda, intimates thereby that the same study would be a cause of unhappiness to women and S'ūdras [who are not so invested]. How, then, are these two classes of persons to discover the means of future happiness? We answer, from the Puranas and other such works. Hence it has been said, since the triple Veda may not be heard by women, Sudras, and degraded twice-born men, the Mahabharata was, in his benevolence,

74 Kalanja-bhakshanam is mentioned in the Commentary on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, x. 33, 28. In his translation of the Kusumānjali, p. 81, note, Professor Cowell says: "Some hold the Kalanja to be the flesh of a deer killed by a poisoned arrow-others hemp or bhang,-others a kind of garlic. See Raghunandana's Ekādasī tattva.”

composed by the Muni.'" The Veda, therefore, has only a relation to men of the three superior classes who have obtained investiture.

"Then the authority of the Veda is self-evident, from the fact of its communicating knowledge. For though the words of men also communicate knowledge, still, as they must be conceived to participate in the fallibility of their authors, they require some primary authority to remedy that fallibility. But such is not the case with the Veda; for as that had no beginning, it is impossible to suspect any defect in the utterer.

...

"A doubt may, however, be raised whether the Veda is not, like the sentences of Kālidāsa and others, derived from a personal being," as it proclaims itself to have been formed by Brahma, according to the text, 'the Rich and Saman verses, the metres, sprang from him; from him the Yajush was produced;'77 in consequence of which Bādarāyaṇa, in the aphorism 78 since he is the source of the śastra,' has pronounced that Brahma is the cause of the Veda. But this doubt is groundless; for the eternity of the Veda has been declared both by itself, in the text, with an eternal voice, o Virupa,'79 and by the Smriti in the verse 'an eternal voice, without beginning or end, was uttered by the Self-existent.' 80 Badarāyaṇa, too, in his section on the deities (Brahma Sutras, i. 3, 29) has this aphorism; hence also [its] eternity [is to be maintained].' If it be objected that these statements of his are mutually conflicting, I answer, No. For [in the passages where] the word eternity is applied to the Vedas, it is to be understood as referring to the period of action [or mundane existence]. This period is that which commences with the creation, and lasts till the destruction of the universe, since, during this interval, no worlds are seen to 75 See the quotation from the Bhagavata Purāṇa, above, p. 42.

76 This seems to be the only way to translate paurusheya, as purusha cannot here mean a human being.

77 R.V. x. 90, 9, quoted in the First Volume of this work, p. 10; and p. 3, above. 78 Brahma Sūtras, i. 1, 3, p. 7 of Dr. Ballantyne's Aphorisms of the Vedānta. 79 These words are part of Rig-veda, viii. 64, 6: Tasmai nūnam abhidyave vāchā Virupa nityaya | vṛishne chodasva sushṭutim | "Send forth praises to this heavenaspiring and prolific Agni, o Virūpa, with an unceasing voice [or hymn]." The word nityaya seems to mean nothing more than "continual," though in the text I have rendered it "eternal," as the author's reasoning requires. Colebrooke (Misc. Ess. i. 306), however, translates it by "perpetual." I shall again quote and illustrate this verse further on.

This line, from the M.Bh. S'antip. 8533, has already been cited above, in p. 16.

81

originate, or to be destroyed. Just as time and wether (space) are eternal, so also is the Veda eternal, because, during the period of mundane existence, it has not been composed by any person, as the works of Kālidāsa and others have been.82 Nevertheless, the Veda, like time and æther, is recorded in Scripture to have originated from Brahma at the first creation. There is, therefore, no discrepancy between the two different sets of passages, as they refer to different points. And since Brahma is free from defect, the utterer of the Veda is consequently free from defect; and therefore a self-demonstrated authority resides in it. Seeing, therefore, that the Veda possess a characteristic mark, and is supported by proof, and that it has a subject, a use, a relation, and persons competent for its study, and, moreover, that its authority is established, it follows that it ought to be interpreted."

SECT. VIII.-Arguments of the Mimānsakas and Vedāntins in support of the eternity and authority of the Vedas.

I shall now proceed to adduce some of the reasonings by which the authors of the Purva Mīmānsā, and Vedānta, aphorisms, and their commentators, defend the doctrine which, as we have already seen, is held by some of the Indian writers, that the Vedas are eternal, as well as infallible.

I.-Pūrva Mīmānsā.-I quote the following texts of the Purva Mīmānsa which relate to this subject from Dr. Ballantyne's aphorisms of the Mīmānsa, pp. 8 ff.83 I do not always follow the words of Dr. Ballantyne's translations, though I have made free use of their substance. (See also Colebrooke's Misc. Ess. i. 306, or p. 195 of Williams and Norgate's ed.) The commentator introduces the subject in the following way:

81 Passages affirming both the eternity of the æther, and its creation, are given in the First Volume of this work, pp. 130 and 506.

82 The same subject is touched on by Sayana, at p. 20 of the introductory portion of his commentary on the Rigveda. The passage will be quoted at the end of the next section."

3 Since the 1st edition of this Volume was published, the Sanskrit scholar has obtained easy access to a more considerable portion of the Mīmānsă Sūtras with the commentary of S'abara Svamin by the appearance of the first, second, and part of third, Adhyayas in the Bibliotheca Indica.

Sabdarthayor utpatty-anantaram purushena kalpita-sanketātmaka-sambandhasya kalpitatvat purusha-kalpita - sambandha-jnānāpekshitvāt sabdāsya yathā pratyaksha-jnānam śuktikādau satyatram vyabhicharati tathā purushūdhīnatvena śabde 'pi satyatva-vyabhichāra-sambhavāt na dharme chodanā pramānam iti pūrva-pakshe siddhāntam āha |

"Since, subsequently to the production of words and the things signified by them, a connection of a conventional character has been established between the two by the will of man, and since language is dependent upon a knowledge of this conventional connection determined by man, [it follows that] as perception is liable to error in respect of mother-of-pearl and similar objects [by mistaking them for silver, etc.], so words also may be exposed to the risk of conveying unreal notions from [their sense] being dependent on human will; and consequently that the Vedic precepts [which are expressed in such words, possessing a merely conventional and arbitrary meaning] cannot be authoritative in matters of duty. Such is an objection which may be urged, and in reply to which the author of the aphorisms declares the established doctrine."

Then follows the fifth aphorism of the first chapter of the first book of the Mīmānsä: Autpattikas tu(a) śabdasya) arthena sambandhas(c) tasyad jnāname) upadeso 'vyatirekaś cha arthe 'nupalabdhe tat pramānam Bādarāyaṇasya anapekshatvāt | which may be paraphrased as follows: "The connection of a word with its sense is coeval with the

origin of both. In consequence of this connection the words of the Veda convey a knowledge of duty, and impart unerring instruction in regard to matters imperceptible. Such Vedic injunctions constitute the proof of duty alleged by Badarāyaṇa, author of the Vedanta Sūtras; for this proof is independent of perception and all other evidence."

I subjoin most of the remarks of the scholiast as given by Dr. Ballantyne, indicating by letters the words of the aphorism to which they refer:

(a) Autpattikaḥ | svābhāvikaḥ | nityaḥ iti yāvat | “Autpattika (original) means natural, eternal in short."

(b) S'abdasya | nitya-veda-ghaṭaka-padasya “agnihotram juhuyāt svargakāmaḥ" ityādeḥ | "Sabda (word) refers to terms which form part of the eternal Veda, such as, 'the man who desires heaven should perform the Agnihotra sacrifice.""