Artic Home of the Aryans by Lokamanya Bal ... - Mandhata Global

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Logas of the Alexandrian Schools in the West. The Naiyâyikas, on
the other hand, deny the doctrine of the eternity of sound or word, but
hold that the authority of the Vedas is established by the fact of their
having emanated from competent (âpta) persons who had an intuitive
perception of duty (sâkshâtkrita dharmânah, as Yâska puts it), and
whose competence is fully proved by the efficacy of such of the Vedic
injunctions as relate to mundane matters, and can, therefore, be’
tested by experience; while the author of the Vaisheshika Sûtras
clearly refers (I, 1, 3) the Veda to Îshvara or God as its framer. The
Sânkhyas (Sânkhya Sûtras, V, 40-51) agree with the Naiyâyikas in
rejecting the doctrine of the eternity of the connection of a word with
its meaning; and though they regard the Veda as paurusheya in the
sense that it emanated from the Primeval Purusha, yet they maintain
that it was not the result of a conscious effort on the part of this
Purusha, but only an unconscious emanation from him like his
breathing. According to this view the Veda cannot be called eternal in
the same sense as the Mîmâmsakas have done, and, therefore, the
texts which assert the eternity of the Vedas, are said to refer merely
to “the unbroken continuity of the stream of homogeneous
succession,” (Veda-nityatâ-vâkyâni cha sajâtîyâ-nupûrvîpravâhânuchcheda-parâni).*
Patanjali, the great grammarian, in his
gloss on Pânini IV, 3, 101, solves the question by making a distinction
between the language (the succession of words or letters,
varnânupûrvî, as we find it in the present texts) of the Vedas and their
contents (artha), and observing that the question of the eternity of the
Vedas refers to their sense which is eternal or permanent (artho
nityah), and not to the order of their letters, which has not always
remained the same (varnânupûrvî anityâ), and that it is through this
difference in the latter respect that we have the different versions
* Cf. Vedântaparibhâshâ Âgama-parichcheda, p. 55, quoted in
Mahâmahopâdhyâya Jhalkikar’s Nyâya-kosha, 2nd Ed. p. 736. s.v.