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Raghu Seshadri • March 11, 1996 


Sri Dileepan writes -

-   (2) as it is I am happy to suspend
-   logic and accept the vEdhaas as unchanging truths that simply
-   came into existance; one more illogical concept won't hurt me
-   too much, and most importantly, (3) these are secondary

Sir, I don't see why the claim of the Veda
as an eternal truth is illogical. To quote
my favorite advaitic Swami once again, :-)

"by the vedas no books are meant. They are
 the eternal verities, the principles 
 that form the warp and woof of the
 Universe. By our [hindu] conception,
 they are akin to a flowing river, and
 the rishis who discovered them were 
 like pilgrims who dipped into them 
 and brought the lifegiving waters to
 others on the banks. If ever the hindu
 race forgets the vedas, that river will
 continue to flow - they will
 continue to signify that eternal truth,
 and still constitute the
 principle on which the universe is built.
 It is in this sense that the vedas have
 no beginning and no end."

Sounds pretty reasonable, does it not ?

-    Mani, I think you are a little hasty here.  The hell
-    we are talking about is not the Christian kind, eternal.
-    It is just a place to compensate your bad karma; and a
-    little pain can be very therapeutic!  One does get a chance
-    for atonement, in the next birth.

Exactly. In no way can the puranic hell be
compared to the unreasonable, cruelty for
cruelty's sake hell of the god of the
Christians or Muslims. The puranic hell
is a temporary region where you cool
your heels, pay your dues, kick yourself
for having been stupid and nasty,
resolve to do better and get back to
get yet another chance to do it right.

-
-    Let me repeat for good measure what I mentioned at the
-    beginning, I am simply accepting these notions as
-    described by poorvaachaaryaas; I don't see any benefit
-    in trying to apply logic with these.
-

I find both these notions quite reasonable.
Indeed, since often my measure of truth is
(let me confess) poetic beauty ( I am a disciple
of Keats among others ), the claim of
the veda rings very true. Atleast it ought
to be true. Nothing has a right to be 
so beautiful without being true.

Raghu Seshadri