Pramana Wiki

Refutation of Vedic Authority

7 min read

Refutation of Vedic Authority

dharmakirti’s extended demolition of the Mīmāṃsā claim that the Vedas are authoritative because they are authorless (apauruṣeyatva, མི་བྱས་པ་). The argument occupies the final quarter of Chapter 1 of the pramanavartika (verses 1.224–end, approximately 117 stanzas) and is the negative counterpart to the positive argument of buddha-as-pramana: one establishes the Buddha as a nondeceptive authority; this one refutes the rival Mīmāṃsā candidate for scriptural authority. gorampa (gorampa-pramanavartika, §§27–32) structures it as four integrated refutations.

The Mīmāṃsā Thesis

Jaimini’s Mīmāṃsā defends the Vedas as an epistemic instrument by two linked claims:

  1. Authorlessness (apauruṣeyatva) — the Vedas were not produced by any person. The causes of erroneous words are personal faults (desire, etc.); an authorless text therefore cannot be in error
  2. Natural word–meaning relation — the connection between Vedic syllables and their referents is not conventional but intrinsic, so meanings are recovered without the intervention of any human convention

A supporting claim, handled separately in the refutation, is that the Vedas are nondeceptive in one domain (commonly accepted empirical matters) and that this reliability can be extended to the hidden matters they also pronounce on.

Stage 1 — Parallel Reasoning (PV 1.224–230)

Dharmakīrti runs the Mīmāṃsā reason in reverse:

The causes of words of truth are qualities arising from a person. Therefore why would that not produced by a person not have the reality of error? Thus others assert. (PV 1.225)

If “not being produced by a person” proves truth because personal faults produce error, then by symmetry it proves error because personal qualities (compassion, wisdom) produce truth. The reason is symmetrical and therefore uncertain — it proves whatever one wishes.

The Mīmāṃsā reply — “the word–meaning relation is natural, not conventional” — opens the second stage.

Stage 2 — The Convention Problem (PV 1.226–230)

The cause of understanding meaning is linguistic convention, which depends upon people. Thus, even if the words were not produced by a person, the possibility of error remains. (PV 1.226)

Meaning is transmitted by linguistic convention. If the Mīmāṃsā grants this, human-dependence re-enters and authorlessness loses its force. If they reject it, claiming a natural word–meaning relation, two sub-horns follow:

  • If naturally connected to a single meaning, most Vedic expressions must become unintelligible, because Vedic terms are used across a range of distinct meanings
  • If naturally connected to many meanings, then a Vedic injunction like “If you desire higher realms, give burnt offerings to the fire” would equally illustrate contradictions of one’s desires — “eat dog meat” — because many-meaning connection is total-meaning connection (PV 1.228)

Dharmakīrti’s image for the dilemma:

Not being composed by a person, there is no meaning in any way. If you accept that it was composed, that is actually like washing an elephant. (PV 1.230)

Denying composition leaves no intelligibility; admitting composition re-admits the faults that authorlessness was supposed to screen off.

Stage 3 — Permanence vs. Impermanence (PV 1.231–246)

Is the word–meaning relation permanent or impermanent?

  • If permanent: permanent relations cannot acquire new correspondences, so the Vedas cannot teach any meaning they were not already related to — new understanding becomes impossible. Further, the bearers of the relation (the things named — pots, fire, etc.) are impermanent, so a permanent relation cannot stably attach to them
  • If impermanent: the Mīmāṃsā has denied this from the start, since they hold the Vedas and the word–meaning relation to be eternal

Dharmakīrti therefore concludes: “it follows that the relationship in which the meaning expressed and the sounds that express appear as mixed is produced — that is, conceived — by the cognition of a person” (PV 1.231).

A related refutation targets the suggestion that even if a particular pot is destroyed, the class of pots remains, so the word–class relation stays permanent. Dharmakīrti’s reply: what potential of dependence does a permanent thing have? Dependence itself is incompatible with permanence (PV 1.233).

Stage 4 — Syllables, Words, and Sequence (PV 1.247–316)

A detailed analysis of how an authorless speech is supposed to function at all:

  • Syllables are no different from ordinary worldly syllables — recognised as the same by the same cognition — so if the Vedic syllables are person-independent, so are ordinary syllables, and the category collapses (PV 1.247)
  • Speech distinct from syllables cannot be apprehended; if distinct, it must be either partless or composed of parts. Both horns collapse:
    • If speech has parts, either each part individually expresses the meaning (in which case comprehending any one part should deliver the whole meaning, and the sequential structure of speech becomes meaningless) or each part individually expresses no meaning (in which case speech is a conceptual imputation on parts, hence a product of the mind) (PV 1.248–249)
    • If speech is partless, the sequential structure of understanding cannot be accounted for (PV 1.250)
  • Sound and its potential are not permanent — a long examination of whether sound exists permanently and only appears to arise at the moment of utterance; Dharmakīrti rejects this on the grounds of impermanence reasoning established earlier in the chapter

Stage 5 — No Access to Vedic Meaning (PV 1.317–end)

Even granting the Mīmāṃsā everything, the final move is that the Mīmāṃsin cannot in practice ascertain the definitive meaning of the Vedas:

A nature of desire and so on, not knowing the meanings of the Vedas from others, and not knowing the Vedas themselves, from what do you know the meaning of the Vedas? (PV 1.317)

The Mīmāṃsin is himself possessed of desire and therefore liable to error; any teacher he relies on is equally compromised; and the Vedas themselves, held to be authorless, can give no speaker’s intention. So:

From hearing “Desiring a high rebirth, make offerings to the fire,” by what valid cognition does it not mean “Eat dog meat”? (PV 1.318)

The fallback — that common usage settles Vedic meaning — fails on two counts: (a) common usage is the words of humans, whom the Mīmāṃsā does not accept as authoritative, and (b) the Vedas use terms (e.g. “higher rebirth”, “goddess”) in senses distinct from their common meanings, so common usage cannot fix Vedic reference (PV 1.319–324).

The Shape of the Argument

The five stages proceed as a dilemma tree: the Mīmāṃsā position cannot simultaneously hold (a) authorlessness, (b) a natural word–meaning relation, and (c) a coherent account of how Vedic meaning is transmitted and understood. Each escape route closes another. gorampa presents this as Dharmakīrti systematically foreclosing the Mīmāṃsā options rather than a single knock-down refutation.

Relationship to the Rest of Chapter 1

Dharmakīrti closes Chapter 1 with the Vedic refutation because it is the climactic application of fallacious-reasoning analysis — the fourth macro-topic of the chapter after the three perfect reasons, the enumeration into three, and the indispensable relationship. The Mīmāṃsā proposal that authorlessness is a reason for truth is exhibited as a reason whose pervasion fails (stage 1), whose supporting premises are incoherent (stages 2–3), and whose thesis is in any case beyond the Mīmāṃsin’s epistemic reach (stages 4–5).

This is also why the refutation is given here rather than in Chapter 2: Chapter 2 establishes a positive epistemic authority (the Buddha) from causes; Chapter 1 shows what it looks like for a candidate authority to fail the demands of correct reasoning.

Significance

  • Philosophy of language: the argument is the historical template for the Buddhist claim that meaning depends on convention (saṅketa, brda), against the Mīmāṃsā Sphoṭa-adjacent view of natural signification
  • Epistemology: closes off testimony (śabda) as a separate pramāṇa by showing that the only plausible candidate for intrinsically authoritative testimony (an authorless text) is incoherent; testimony must reduce to inference
  • Hermeneutics: prefigures the Buddhist threefold analysis (དཔྱད་པ་གསུམ་) of scripture — scripture cannot be self-authorising, so its authority must be inferred from consistency with perception, inference, and other scriptural propositions (see scriptural-authority)

Sources

Graph View

Backlinks