How is shabda-pramana free from four defects?

From Goutam Paul P
Sabda-praman is the aural reception of spiritual knowledge in disciplic succession. That is also processed through our senses. Then how Sabda-praman is free from the four defects?
There is scope for misunderstanding of the speaker, of the listener and there is scope for addition of noise in different written versions.

Answer Podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJCt0pfOBLg

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
this is our personal example Hare Krishna question from Gautam Paul Prabhu how is Shabda Pramana free from the four defects there is we receive the knowledge through our senses and we process it with our intelligence and when there is writing done in different versions also there can be different things that may get added so how can we say that Shabda Pramana is free from the four defects answer we need to carefully understand what Shabda Pramana means and how it works the point of talking about the four defects is to underscore the limitations of knowledge acquired through Vaktikshana so then when we move from the human source of knowledge to a divine source of knowledge because human sources of knowledge are going to be having these defects so we first of all understand the principle that there is we need a revolution which offers us knowledge coming from a divine infallible source that is what is available from scripture so first of all we understand this principle that we need we need knowledge that is free from the defects and now knowledge is also one of our necessities for living ultimately we may need food, clothing, shelter and other things for our survival but if the God who has provided us that he has provided us heat, light, air, water, he has provided for us, he provided for our necessities of living, of course we have to strive a little bit, we have to food, air, heat, light, air, water, these are available but we have to strive to acquire them but the point is without his provision our striving will also not lead to our getting those things so just as God has provided us many of the necessities for living similarly one necessity for living is the purpose of living so that knowledge of the purpose of living is also provided by God through scripture and just like food is provided in nature but we have to strive to get it similarly knowledge is provided by God through scripture but we have to strive to get it and that striving is not just in terms of finding out the right path but also in purifying ourselves in terms of our desires and in terms of our conceptions so scripture is primarily a guidebook for living that shastra gives us knowledge about karya and akarya what kind of action we are to do what kind of action we are not to do it talks about the broad principles of living so these principles are central to the scripture and they do not change why? because they are central now when we talk about madhvacharya based on the scriptures the scriptures define what is shastra and Prabhupada also quotes this in the Chetan Charita and he talks about the original Vedas Upanishads, the itihasas and the Puranas, these are shastra now subsequently there are many commentaries written on them and those can be called shastra in an extended sense of the word as we have Vedic scriptures and scriptures in pursuance of the Vedic version so these are, all other books are books in pursuance of the Vedic version although in extended sense they can also be called a shastra, so now the original scripture in their original revealed form are shabda pramana so and their original purpose is to provide us guidance for living in this world so when we understand this then we can consider how we can use scripture so now as far as textual variations is concerned or even variations in the oral tradition is concerned we have to understand that the point of scripture is not just to give literal, factual knowledge of this world the point of scripture, although there is factual knowledge of this world also given in scripture, but that is not the central point of scripture, the central point of scripture is to give us knowledge of how to go beyond this world, how to live in this world by which we can go beyond this world so as far as certain, if you want to use the word mistakes are concerned the point is that the acharyas do not get very worked up about this, so for example Vishwanath Chakravarthy at many places in his commentaries mentions that a particular verse is having an ending in a particular way and he says this grammatical form should be like this so now he is himself stating that this grammatical form should be like this that means he is saying that the grammatical form is like this and it is like this in the scripture and it should be like this it should actually be like this so is he pointing out fault in scripture is he saying that scripture is defective and if scripture is defective then does that mean that scripture should be rejected? No he himself devoted his life to studying scripture and writing books on scripture and teaching scripture so these are peripheral faults for example faults in say grammatical style which as we talk about grammatical style also grammatical style is also not eternal the way grammar rules are at a particular time and the way grammar rules are at a different time can change also and if you look at it in Bhagavatam also itself states that so padvaag visargo those words padvaag visargo janataag visarga is a it’s a destructive transformation it’s a revolution that the old is destroyed and it is replaced by a new visarga janataag viplavo visarga is actually creation viplava is revolution so that creation of those words which janataag viplavo which destroys the sinful reactions the sinful actions and reactions of people which transforms their life even if every word within them is faulty every verse but if it is glorifying the names of the lord and the glories of the lord then that the saintly people accept it relish it and share it and broadcast it so here we see a clear contrast between the spiritual potency and the material accuracy or the material flawlessness so here in this is the in the fifth chapter of the first canto yasadev is telling naradhuni is telling yasadev about how he should write the bhagavatam so the point he is making is that don’t bother about the faults focus on the potency and he is saying now we could at one level say that this is just rhetorical that actually there are no faults but even if there are faults the point is that there is the there is the purity of the there is the potency of the message and the potency comes because the lord is being glorified so the point of scripture is that it brings us in connection with the supreme lord and that connection which happens through revelation is supremely auspicious so yasadev is being told by naradhuni the spiritual master to write a book which will bring about a revolution in the lives of people by glorifying the lord so he is not saying that you have to write a book which is flawless in every single way he is saying write a book which is which is flawless is supremely potent in that it is glorifying the lord and shatrapapa himself writes in his purport that our attempts to speak this to share this message in a foreign language will certainly fail prabhupada writes, prabhupada’s english was good as compared to that of many indians most indians at his time as compared to many of his god brothers in the gaudiya mission also but still from the point of view of english, english grammar english language english was definitely not his first language or even his second language so he was so his english had grammatical flaws and he asked his editors to correct those grammatical flaws and prabhupada admitted openly that yes it’s not just there is a possibility that there are many flaws, there is a certainty there is a certainty that our attempt to speak in this great literature in a foreign language will certainly fail but he again says that this is after all a message of a technical value he is saying that, talking about it’s a technical book about spiritual values spiritual values means about how we are souls and we are servants of Krishna and we are meant to serve Krishna so that is a central thrust and prabhupada gives further an example of how when a house is on fire then one ensures that even if he doesn’t know the language of the people who are trapped in that house somehow he will communicate to them that there is fire get out of here so like that, the central call of action, that is what is vital in studying scripture so the transformation that scripture brings about in our heart is that it redirects our heart from the world to Krishna to God and this is the central message of the Bhagavad Gita which does not change so yes depending on particular people’s cultural conceptions different things may be understood in slightly different ways and there is also the point that there are different recensions which have different slightly different versions of the book but the point is if you look at the Bhagavad Gita there is Shankaracharya’s commentary which was almost now 1500 years ago in the 6th, 7th century he was and his commentary has 700 verses and today the Gita has 1700 verses his commentary is based on the Gita, 700 verses and the 700 verses have not changed now from the point of view of manuscript fidelity, this not changing, the verses remain the same is significant, similarly we have Sridhar Swami’s Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavatam, Sridhar Swami’s exact like age is not known but estimated somewhere around 14th century or something like that so again for 800, 700, 800 years the Bhagavatam that he has given and the Bhagavatam that is widely commented on today is the same so these books have not changed but when there is a text critical analysis at that time there are scholars who note there are sometimes small small differences in some may become a or so there are some verses where certain verses, certain small words change but the essential meaning doesn’t change and the overall message doesn’t change so even in the tradition the Acharyas have been aware for example Vyasatitha Vyasatitha the prominent commentator on the prominent scholar in the Madrasampradaya so when he is commenting on say the works of on the Bhagavad Gita or on the scriptures in the introduction he does and in general this is the tradition which is followed by all traditional scholars and he says ok I look at these manuscripts and I found these are small small differences ok this has become a this is ma there is over here or whatever ma there is bha so he makes a list of all that and then he goes on and gives a commentary on the Gita or on the Bhagavatam so we have to understand that the purpose of scripture is to convey to us a practical transformational call for action and that is based on Siddhantic understanding so Siddhantic understanding and the practical application they don’t change they remain the same and the scriptures potency is in the transformation that it brings about so for example if there was a person who was deceased and a doctor developed a medicine by which the deceased can be cured so now that medicine may pass down through 100 people and then it comes to the 101st person now how will the person who is 101st know that that medicine is the same as what was given by the doctor of the first patient for that matter coming to our situation when we get a medicine how do we know that the medicine that we have got is exactly the same medicine that was certified by the research labs as accurate and the same medicine that was produced by the manufacturing company and the same medicine that was transmitted through the wholesalers to the retailers to us now if we want to go back and trace before taking every medicine did the medicine come out right was it counterfeit it will be impossible it will be impossible we will die long, we will get sick and we will die long before we are able to check the medicines authenticity but fully in apparent charity we look at the fruit is the desired effect of the medicine coming about so if I have got cough and by taking a medicine the cough is supposed to go and the cough goes away and I understand that this medicine is authentic so similarly when we look at the scripture if a hundred and first person is there how does the hundred and first person know that the medicine has come down from the first person through all the hundred people to be accurate if the first person gets whatever is the effect that is told by the doctor whatever is the effect that has happened in the first person if that happens in the hundred and first person also then that means the message has come down systematically without any distortion so the medicine has come out without any radiation or contamination or substitution so similarly we look at the Bhagavad Gita we look at its conclusion we look at what was the effect on the original Surya Arjuna and we look at what is the effect on people today who are studying the Bhagavad Gita and then we can check whether the fidelity has been maintained or not now if you look at the Bhagavad Gita in general the scripture offers us primarily two things sadhan and sadhya sadhan is the means and sadhya is the goal just like if we are on a road we want to know where I should be going and how I should be going there so sadhan and sadhya are the primary gifts that scripture gives us so now if you look at the Bhagavad Gita itself what is Arjuna’s conclusion about what is the sadhya if he the Bhagavad Gita is summarized by Krishna in the Chatushloki Gita from 10.8 to 11 and after hearing that what does Krishna Arjuna say, he gives his understanding so that is he says so long since the verses 12 and 13 and essentially he says Krishna you are the supreme person you are the supreme absolute truth you are the god of all the gods so he accepts Krishna as the ultimate sadhya and if you look at the end of the Bhagavad Gita what happens at the end of the Gita is Krishna, Arjuna doesn’t say I am a Kshatriya, I will fight Arjuna says this is in 18.73 I will do your will this is clearly an expression of devotional surrender Jesus said that oh father let thy will be done not mine that is also an expression of devotional surrender Arjuna actually offers a higher expression of devotional surrender not just acceptance of God’s will but assumption of the responsibility to do God’s will oneself not that let your will happen but I will do your will so here the point is this is a devotional expression so bhakti is the sadhya so sadhana and sadhya which are given as the conclusion of the Gita they are seen as sadhana sadhya which people understand today when they study the Gita actually Prabhupada travelled all over the world and taught the Bhagavad Gita to people what happened they had so many different conceptions of what a sadhya is sadhya is going to be the moon sadhya is doing this, sadhya is doing that but then they took up millions of people all over the world took up the sadhya becoming devoted to Krishna of making Krishna as the be all and end all of their lives and how did they, what sadhana did they practice they adopted the process of bhakti yoga so in terms of the essential message that message is not lost yes we may process the message through our senses we may use our intelligence but the point is that the point here is not of is not of rejecting our senses and our intelligence entirely but not of, our point is of not depending on it entirely when we talk about scripture as a manual for living so now if there is a worker who is going to use a device now the worker may try to figure out oneself, ok this is the button over here this is the button over here, maybe I can push this maybe I can pull this, maybe I can tap this and let’s see how it works out now the worker may damage, destroy the machine also or in the best case the worker may be able to figure out some functions and may be able to use it partially so in this case the worker is using the intelligence in a speculative way but if the worker takes a manual, now even after taking the manual the worker has to use the intelligence but the intelligence is used in a submissive way not a speculative way this is what the manual says, now even to understand the manual and to operate the device according to the manual requires intelligence, requires use of our senses and our mind our intelligence so the point of talking about fold effects is not to say that we are never meant to use our intelligence at all it is going to say that we are not we shouldn’t use our intelligence to originate knowledge to think that I can figure things out myself rather we can understand that because of having fold effects if we try to figure out things on our own, by monkeying around in this world, trying to find out how things are, what things are then we will not come to a proper conclusion but if we rely on a source who is free from those defects and then just like a worker has to use the intelligence to study the manual, similarly we use scripture, we use our intelligence to study scripture and Krishna himself calls upon us to do that Vimrish shankta dashi vishu me etechi siddha kuru, Krishna tells Arjuna deliberate deeply on what I have said and then decide what you have to do, so Krishna is not telling Arjuna because your intelligence is defective so don’t use your intelligence at all just do what I am telling you yes, you use your intelligence and understand what I am saying, so we have to understand the purpose of fold effects is not to purpose of talking about fold effects is not to completely reject our senses and mind but to subordinate human means of acquiring knowledge to the divine means of revealing knowledge and to harmonize the two so as far as there may be some defects which may be there in the periphery of scripture in terms of grammar, in terms of language in terms of certain things like that but in terms of the central message of the call for action of what is the purpose of life and how the purpose is to be achieved in terms of that the central message of scripture is preserved and is available to us even today and that’s why we can confidently follow scripture and attain life’s supreme perfection. Thank you.
Hare Krishna