Apauruṣeyā

In Hinduism, Apaurusheyatva (IAST: Apauruṣeya), Sanskrit, "being unauthored", is used to describe the Vedas, the main scripture in Hinduism. This implies that the Vedas are not authored by any agency, be it human or divine. Apaurusheya shabda ("unauthored word") is an extension of apaurusheya which refers to the Vedas.

Apaurusheyatva is a central concept in the Vedanta and Mimamsa schools of Hindu philosophy. These schools accept the Vedas as svatah pramana ("self-evident means of knowledge"). These schools accept that the Vedas were "heard" by the Rishis. The Mimamsa school asserts that since the Vedas are composed of words (shabda) and the words are composed of phonemes, the phonemes being eternal, the Vedas are also eternal. To this, if asked whether all words and sentences are eternal, the Mimamsa philosophers reply that the rules behind combination of phonemes are fixed and pre-determined for the Vedas, unlike other words and sentences. The Vedanta school also accepts this line of argument.

See also

• shruti
• acheiropoieta
• revelation
• shabda

External links

• Vedâpauruseyatva An overview of the concept, by Prof. D. Prahladachar, presented with the author's permission. 58855 bytes. (PDF)