Answer to that: I don't know. Nobody does. I hope you have some understanding of Indian philosophy and the concept of "dharma", which pertains to preservation and attempts to understand the significance the Vedic sounds. It is emphatically clear in Vedic philosophy that "dharma" is not something that is already achieved (bhUta) but that which is to be continually strived for (bhavishyat).RajeshA wrote:Was there ever a time when the Vedas were understood? If yes, by whom? If no, who would be able to understand in the future if not humans?
Is it not the same way with science ? Nobody understands the laws of the universe. We have a little bit of knowledge, and the more we learn that greater the number of new questions which arise. Some even argue that we may never be able to fully understand the laws of nature at all. That doesn't deter us from the pursuit, in the course of which many other tangential benefits also accrue.
Yes sir I am. And every single Vedic pandit will agree with me. Nobody understands the meaning of the RV Samhita. That is why all Indian schools of philosophy (darshanas) have treated them as a "constant" while focusing on the brahmanas and the upanishads. There has never developed in India a school of thought engaged in the interpretation of the "meanings" of the RV sounds. Such attempts were few and far between and there was no cohesive effort. The reason is simple: it was soon realized that there were way too many inconsistencies when trying to force-fit Sanskrit meanings to Vedic words.There are many Brahmins who have seen it as their life's work to both preserve the Vedas and to study them! You are basically saying there is nobody who understands them!
Therefore, the focus was on preserving the Vedic sounds for future generations and to continue to develop ancillary disciplines centered around the Vedic sounds in order to derive other benefits. Also, a mistake (though understandable) was made in restricting the "maintenance" of the Veda to a particular caste/group of individuals. If we have more collective responsibility for the Veda without any narrow turf-battles, then such issues would never arise.
I am not cooking up these statements. I make them from a solid philosophical and epistemological foundation rooted in the Indian world-view.And as soon as a human would presume some meaning in some word in the Vedas, it would automatically be false! It is interesting that you can make such a generalized statement!
I did not say the humanly-derived meaning is "false". I said before, anyone is free to assign whatever meaning they want to the RV sounds. In fact I already listed several disciplines that arose from such attemptes and have contributed enormously to Indian civilization. I am saying exactly that one cannot use these word-associations as historical arguments. In order to do so, one would need an independent testimony that identified the person who made the association, what was his legitimate connection with the sounds of the Veda, what was the context of the word-association, and so forth. Such an independent testimony is simply not available since any records of this are lost. What we have is nighantu and nirukta, but these are just "catalogs" and do not contain historical testimony or records.
One of the problems with the AIT/OIT debate is that it seems to have no epistemological foundation. It's a free-for-all with all the disputants making ad-hoc arguments. In particular, the epistemological category (pramana) of "testimony" seems to be badly abused in these arguments.
I appreciate the great efforts of the OIT and anti-PIE theorists. The problem is that you are fighting the AIT/PIE on *its* turf, and moreover a debate based on trying to find history and geography in the RV will continue FOREVER unless one side gives up. Do you not see that the AIT/PIE folks have a vested interest in keeping this going? It's what enables them to keep cranking out crap papers in low-impact journals, get some funding, infect students with the same disease, keep "the field" going, etc.
Bring the battle to *our turf* and see how quickly these guys lose and die. The first step is to conclusively disprove and reject the absurd theory that it is possible to find history, geography, and human culture in the Rgveda. The framework for doing that is already there in Mimamsa and Vedanta and it has successfully defeated many others (e.g., NV, Sankhya, Buddhists, etc etc) in the past. Especially the Buddhist arguments were extremely powerful, so much more than these puny AIT/PIE jokers. The Veda has prevailed and it always will. Please help in the right way, and not in wrong (although well-intentioned) ways.
What are you talking about ? I am saying very clearly that these disciplines grown out of the Vedas were NOT flukes. They arose due to deliberate theories and attempts to interrogate various aspects of the RV sounds. I have great respect for these disciplines, but I did point examples of overreach which led to absurd conclusions.You have very forcefully made your case that all fundamental aspects of Hinduism such as Yajnas, Philosophical Enquiry, Puranic literature, etc. deriving from the Vedas are abysmal failures and logical fallacies! The various sciences that have grown out of Vedas or in parallel to the Vedas being heard are also just flukes which occurred when Indians assigned some meaning to the words of the Vedas!
You are saying the same thing as I am. Maybe you are not understanding my post. I entirely agree that in grammar one must assign some meanings (what is the use of a language with no word-meanings)? Did I not say clearly that this was how the Sanskrit language was created ? I was pointing out that having done this word-association, created Sanskrit meanings for Vedic sounds, one cannot go back and reverse-engineer the meaning of the Vedic sounds! This is impossible unless there is an independent testimony of the time, location, and context of those word-association.In fact I would say, even in grammar one would to some extent have to assign some meaning to the words, even if it is just the word's gender, so I guess even the second point cannot be valid as per your contention!
I have NOT reduced anything. Again I fail to understand your reasoning. I have myself pointed out many "uses" of the Veda. As with science, human nature has used the Veda in many "good" ways but also some "not-good" ways. I am saying, very specifically, that the AIT/OIT tendency to start using the RV to back up historical claims, is NOT a good use of the RV. We will all regret it one day.So sir, you have reduced the use of Vedas to nothing! I suppose some Abrahamics would someday use this argument to claim that Vedas means nothing really, and a human can understand them not any more than he would understand some bird chirps!
Best Wishes,
Kishen Lal
Dubey ji interesting that you too picked Kumarila...nice.