Why are certain important verses quoted by acharyas not found in the scriptures?

Devotee-scholars’ research is uncovering the presence in scripture of many verses whose sources were earlier unknown or debated. One excellent sample of such scholarship is this document compiled by a devotee-scholar and friend Hari Parshad Prabhu:

Prabhupada verses – sources found by Hari Parshad P

Specific reference to verses about Mayavada:

mayavadam asac chastram (sastram) pracchannam bauddham ucyate mayaiva kathyate devi kalau brahmana rupina

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
which are quoted by one sampradaya, are not found in the Puranas, are not found in particular decisions of the Puranas.
And these, these verses tend to be important in establishing one particular sampradaya’s view and sort of contradicting or confuting another sampradaya’s position. So, for example, the verse that Mayavadas of Shastram, which contextualizes Shankaracharya’s position and mission. You see, there are three different points here to consider.
Firstly, scriptures are state-specific. State-specific means that in the Bhagavatam itself, in the second canto, there is a verse that when Brahmaji heard the Vedas for the first time, he thought that import is karma kanda. Second time when he heard it, he thought it was jnana kanda.
Third time when he heard it, he understood that bhakti is the conclusion of the Vedas. So, why was this difference there? Because the consciousness of the person reflects. And even in this is the consciousness of function of a person determines what one focuses on.
Psychologists also say that when people hear a talk, at that time, the audience catches only 20% of it. And which 20% they will catch that depends on the individual audience. So, therefore, with respect to the state specificity of the scripture, now, a particular, so now we have great acharyas who are great spiritually evolved, and their state is very high.
And from their state of consciousness, almost like the state of consciousness of absolute truth. So, they’re seeing largely from Krishna’s perspective. And they give us an understanding.
So, that understanding is not just a literal understanding of consciousness, it’s more of an integrated understanding. So, now they will select from various sources, and compile things together and give the answers. So, when this happens, others, because they may see scripture differently, in terms of they may quote different verses and try to come to a different understanding.
But generally speaking, we will see that this accusation has come quite a lot to Madhva Sampradaya. Because many of these verses that Madhva quotes are not found in the contemporary in the books right now. Now, one of those prominent Madhva scholars is B. M. K. Sharma.
And he gives an elaborate analysis. He says that most importantly, at the time of Madhva, there has been strong opposition to his teachings, but none of his critics have criticized him for his sources. None of them have said, oh, you have made your own verses.
And similarly, so now, B. M. K. Sharma has quoted it, the same principle applies to some of the verses which the Jiva Goswami and Siddha Goswami is also quote, well, Devdarshan also quotes, although not so many, some are there. So, at that time also, there was a tradition of critical competitive scholarship. But nobody has challenged his sources.
Secondly, what he says is that if you look at the overall metrical structure, and the language itself has a his own structure and coherence. So, for example, say, if I, as an author, write something, and then you decide to put something in my words, or you have written something, I decide to put in your words, in your words, my own words. So, what happens is, no matter how much I try, the language difference will be there.
And a careful author can, a careful reader can see, this voice and this voice sounds different. So, in general, when, say, for example, something is quoted from the Padma Purana. So, the verses, one structure is quite similar to what is there in the Padma Purana, or somebody is quoted from some other scripture.
So, even if that verse is not found, that, that particular quoting is, the quoted verse is more or less in agreement with the structure and the tone of that particular book. So, therefore, the idea that these are concocted or interpolated verses, it is not that this is something which only now scholars have observed. This is a well-known problem.
And this is called as pathantrabhed in Sanskrit, patha antara, patha means at that time in scripture would be copied. So, it is always possible some some mistakes would come. So, for example, now, if we look at Vedanta Dishika’s Gita commentary, or when we look at Vyasadeva’s Gita commentary.
So, often a significant amount of energy is put on explaining the various recensions. So, okay, and this verse in particular, manye dhana vayan rupat bhasana, brahma dhya surgana manayata siddha, sattvai katham gathayo vachasam bravah. That is the verse which comes in the BBT Bhagavatam.
But some other Bhagavatams are sattvai katham gathayo vachasam bravah. So, gathayo is not available. So, this sort of analysis are given in the, often in the book itself.
They are called different recensions of the same verse or same text. And then they try to, based on reasons say, okay, this does not make sense over here. So, this is the recension which I have taken.
But even if this recension is there, then the explanation is this way. That is also compatible in this literature. Vishwanath Chakradhakar also does that in his, in his Bhagavatam commentary, Sarad Darshan, in the Vaishno Darshan in the 10th Canto, Jiyu Goswami’s commentary.
He also does that quite a bit. So, when the same scholars are showing so much concern, first of all, so I have made three points. First point is, state specific.
So, we may not be able to get that understanding just by literal study. But they give integrated study when they quote from a wide variety of sources. So, in that integrated study, the verses that they quote, at that time, their contemporaries or even for several generations after them, nobody has challenged their, their authenticity of their sources.
How do you know this? Well, you know, we, there are, there is, for example, Charaka Bhashya was written by Shankara and a sponsor to Sri Bhashya is written by Ramanujan and Brahmasutra Bhashya is written by Madhava. Now, when they are critiquing others, they are pointing this, this, this and this logic doesn’t make sense, this logic doesn’t make sense. But they are not saying this verse itself is wrong.
So, that is a well-established tradition of scholarship. And it is quite well-known that this sort of challenge has not been there. So, for example, now, Jiva Swami wrote something, Madhusudana Saraswati, they were sort of contemporary, but they were opponents also.
So, there has been some criticism of each other’s views. But nobody is telling the sources. Because the sources were known to be, nobody would go around playing that much.
So, then what has happened? Exactly. So, because if they are so careful about even various recensions and they analyze and give, this will be this recension, then this is the meaning, this recension, this meaning. So, then what to speak of putting full verses, it’s quite a difficult thing to get away with when there is a culture of intense critical scholarship.
Critical scholarship may not be the way it is now, but it is still, it is a scholarship. Now, what happens is, over the recensions, over the generations, the recensions change. That means, even Neelkanth in his Mahabharata commentary mentions that at his time, there was some different recension with the Mahabharata.
So, then he says, this recension basically means there are two manuscripts of a book, not two manuscripts, two forms of texts of a book. And there are some verses that are different. There are like two major recensions or three major recensions or whatever.
So, sometimes in one recension, certain set of verses are present, in another recension there are verses that are not present. So, recently one devotee has made a compilation of many of the verses which Prabhupada quotes regularly, which was supposed to not be available. But then he has done extensive research and has found out, this verse comes from here, this verse comes from here, this verse comes from here.
So, if you do research further, you will find out that there are certain recensions of the Puranas where those verses would be there. So, in general, for example, the core principles of the philosophy are not dependent on debated or debatable sources. For example, the core principles of Lord Yogeshwara Maharaj, they can be established based on undisputed verses from the Bhagavad Gita.
For example, we want to talk about how Bhakti is the essence of the Bhagavad Gita. Bhagavad Gita is one of the most famous books in world religion actually. It is a very short book and widely available.
So, then it becomes difficult to interpolate or to change. So, in that sense, the basic principles of Lord Yogeshwara Maharaj, we can establish on mainstream verses of the Bhagavad Gita itself. But beyond that, certain issues may require certain points for which certain sources are important.
And if those sources are debated, then how do we approach it? As I said, based on, as I said, the carefulness in doing scholarship and the absence of contemporary decisions of our sources, we understand that the books that they had at that time, they contained these verses. So, now, why are they not available today? That is because that particular version is not available. Or it is not a widely popular.
So, there are devotees or there are specific scholars who made a research and find out, okay, what are the verses of Padma Purana available? And where are particular verses available, where they are not available? And if you do research, we will find a good amount of, good number of verses which are available. Beyond that, whenever these sort of debated issues come up based on question sources, then the important point is that we do not go too much into confrontation instead. See, what is our goal? Is it our goal to try to prove to Shankarites that they are wrong in following Shankaracharya? That is impossible to convince.
So, in general, in any debate, there are three groups who are invested in the debate. One is those who are, say, defending or propagating a particular view. There are others who are strongly opposed to that view.
Now, this opposition can be, say, it can be between at a very broad level between theists and atheists, or it can be between Christians and Hindus. It can be between Advaitins and Dvaitins. It can be between persons and persons, or it can be between even Vaishyas and Pradayis.
But in general, if two groups are committed to their positions, then changing over through logic or through scripture is quite difficult. It does not happen so much. So, then we understand that, okay, this person is practicing it in this way, and that person will evolve accordingly.
The spiritual evolution will happen, but it will happen in a different way. So, now, what do we do? We, if at all we enter into a debate, the purpose is threefold. One is we bolster the faith of those who are on our side, who are also similar proponents and who may have some questions.
Second is those who are fence-sitters, we may be able to get them closer to a clearer understanding. And those who are opponents, we check them temporarily. We are arguing, but this is a counter for this.
But beyond that, if we try to convert the opponents, it does not work. So, I would say that in today’s socio-cultural situation, even the battle between the Advaitins and the Advaitins, far more important than that is the battle between, say, theists and atheists, theists with materialist and spiritualists at large, and also we have threats of conversions and things like that. So, I would say that there is no need to make this battle bigger battle.
If someone wants to go deep into scripture, there are devotees who do this also. And if we want to go deep into that and find out his answers, the answers can be found out. So, you send me a link.
I can send you the link of these Prabhupada shlokas. I am not sure that this particular shloka is there in it. If it is there, then the whole problem will be solved.
If it is not there, I can also contact that devotee and I will ask him about this question and I will try to find out whether the answers are available. But irrespective of this sort of technical analysis, we understand the broad principle that the sources themselves are unlikely to be suspect. What is suspect is the fidelity in the transmission over the centuries.
So, we can try to retrace as much as possible. And our core principles are not dependent on debated sources. Our contextual social positions with respect to other groups, there may be some issues in that.
Then about the religious sources with respect to such issues. So, we don’t, as they say in English, don’t make a storm out of a teacup. Storm in a teacup.
What is the value of a storm? It’s a small controversy. You don’t need to make it very big. In the Chaitanya Bhagavatam, it is described that when Sri Nityananda Prabhu went north in South India, he saw the Shaivites and the Vaishnavites quarrelling.
You know, he is laughing at that. So, what is the point in this quarrel? So, at our level of practice, what do we need to understand? If we see, our faith also develops in progressive levels. So, at our level of practice, our fundamental truths of Krishna consciousness, if we understand them and apply them, we will experience significant transformation in our life.
And ultimately, from a practical point of view, or from an experiential point of view, that is what will increase our faith much more than just finding such verses specifically. So, I am not against this side of research and scholarship. It is a specialized field and those who are interested, or somebody, there can be two cases.
One is, if somebody is interested in inclination in that, the person is strongly situated in that path particular, but is interested in doing this, then the person can definitely do it at a later stage when one is appropriately equipped in philosophy, Sanskrit and certain sources. Now, if somebody is at a situation where initial stage only, and at that stage itself, these sort of things are creating serious doubts. There can be, they say head doubts and heart doubts.
These are more of intellectual questions and there are deeper questions. So, generally, technical queries are, they are head doubts. Only if we dwell on them too much, then we must give them more importance than what is necessary.
So, I would say that if there are serious questions, then we can make a list of all the related verses and then I will try to compile it and I will send it to devotees who are interested out of research and I will get the answers. But overall, I feel that by focusing on the fundamentals for us and spiritual sources for us, for those, we can deepen our conviction and then deal with the, and advance ourselves and deal with these issues as specialized issues when they come.