History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c93.226

v7.c93.226

The doctrine that the Veda is eternal and of absolute and unquestioned authority has led to certain undesirable tendencies. Propounders of new doctrines make great efforts to show that there is Vedic authority for what they hold. For example, the sūtras in V. S. I. 1. 5-18 are concerned to show that the Upaniṣads do not postulate Pradhāna as the cause of the world, as the Sāṅkhyas imagine. Śaṅkarācārya expressly states that the Sāṅkhyas explain Vedānta passages as favourable to their theories and therefore a refutation of their arguments was¹⁹⁷⁷ provided in V. S. I. 1. 5-18. It has been shown above how followers of Śākta worship try to interpret a verse like Ṛgveda V. 47. 4 (catvāra īm bibhrati &c) as referring to the Śākta doctrines and how treatises dignified with the title of Upaniṣads were produced by Śākta writers such as the Bhāvanopaniṣad. Śabara in his bhāṣya on PMS. I. 1. 5 states that the Vijñānavādi Bauddhas put forward Bṛ. Up. IV. 5 13 (Vijñānaghana evaitebhyo bhūtebhyaḥ samutthāya tānyevānuvinaśyati na pretya sañjñāsti) as supporting their position. One of the most glaring examples of this tendency is the explanation of Ṛg. I. 141. 1-3 by Ānandatīrtha, also called Madhvācārya, who in 'Mahābhārata-tātparya-nirṇaya' claims to be the third incarnation of Vāyu, the other two being Hanūmat and Bhīmasena, one of the Pāṇḍavas, and who endeavours to interpret Ṛg. I. 141. 1-3 as referring to these three avatāras.¹⁹⁷⁸ The words ‘Madhvaḥ’ and ‘Mātariśvā’ (meaning ‘wind-god’) occur in Ṛg I. 141. 3. This was deemed sufficient to claim that Madhva, the propounder of the Dvaita system, was mentioned in the Ṛgveda. I do not know how Madhvācārya would have met the charge of Veda not being eternal if it referred to Bhīmasena (who even according to the traditional account in the Mahābhārata lived at the end of Dvāpara age i. e. about 5000 years ago) and to Madhva himself who lived barely seven centuries ago. The Veda would be later than these dates. The argument that this refers to a previous Kalpa would not be available to rebut the charge, as the Kalpa, Manvantara and Mahāyuga when Bhīma and Madhvācārya flourished and in the present day are the same. There was no *pralaya* (dissolution of the world) at the end of Dvāpara and Kaliyuga immediately set in. The Bhārata war was fought between Dvāpara and Kali (Ādiparva 2. 13) and Kaliyuga was about to start at the time of that war (vide Vanaparva ‘etat kaliyugaṁ nāmācirād-yad pravartate’ and Śalya 60. 25 ‘(prāptaṁ Kaliyugaṁ viddhi)’. It is on account of this pretention that he was very roughly handled by eminent writers like Appayya-dīkṣita who charges Madhva with citing fabricated Vedic and other texts in support of his doctrines. Vide I. A. vol. 62 at p. 189 where the writer, Shri Venkatasubbiah, sets out over thirty works mentioned by Madhva which he states occur nowhere else. M. M. Chinnaswami, who has edited (Benares, 1941) Appayya's work in 60 verses with the commentary of Appayya called Madhvamata-vidhvaṁsana and notes of his own, sets out on p. 4 thirty-six unknown works and the sūtras where they are cited by Appayya.