Why are the Vedas called Apaurusheya
When we say that the Vedas are called Apaurusheya, a lot of people picture some God coming down from the sky and handing them over to our Rishis. Now of course in this modern age we all know that there is no deity in the sky who will be coming down from the sky. So what does this term Apurusheya actually mean? In this short article I would like to clarify why the Vedas are called Apurusheya.
India has huge a wealth of ancient texts. Amongst these texts the ones that focus on the intellectual pursuits are called the Sashtras. Now these Shashtras can be broken down into Shruti and Smriti. Shruti in Sanskrit means “that which is heard” while Smriti means “that which is remembered”. Shruti texts are considered Apurushay while Smriti texts are considered Purusheya. So Vedas which are part of the Shruti Shastras are called Apurusheya while Puranas, which are part of Smriti Shahstra are called Purusheya.
Purush if you understand Sanskrit means a man, so Purusheya means “of a man” while Apurusheya means “not of a man”. Here a lot of people do a mistake in terms of Authorship of the Vedas. They think that since Vedas are Apurusheya or not of a man therefore they were not composed or written down by human beings. This way of thinking is quite bizarre. I mean if the texts are there then someone must have composed them, otherwise how did they come into existence. If you are thinking that some God from the sky came down flying and handed it over to us as it is generally shown in the TV serials then you have a lot of ground to cover.
To truly understand what Apurusheya means we need to understand the term Shruti correctly. Shruti as I mentioned previously means “that which is heard”. This means that the knowledge of the Vedas was revealed to our ancient Rishis and these rishis then carefully composed the Vedas to transfer this knowledge generation by generation. The point to focus here is “revealed”. A knowledge that is revealed is something that is discovered instead of being invented. As an example the law of gravity was discovered so it was revealed, while the steam engine was invented so it was created. The law of gravity remains the same no matter who the discoverer is or when it is discovered, the design of steam engine however changed with time with different inventors adding their own designs. Therefore law of gravity is Apurusheya, because it does not depend on the discoverer, while the design of steam engine is Purusheya, because the knowledge of the design depends on the designer.
Moreover since Shruti is discovered and not invented, how can any person put his or her name to it? This knowledge cannot belong to one person it belongs to everyone. The knowledge is said to be revealed by God, because this knowledge was always there, it was just that we were not aware to it. This is the reason why authors of Shruti Shastras are unknown. Because if a name is added to this knowledge then it becomes subjective and absolute truth cannot be subjective.
So I hope now you now understand why Vedas are called Apurusheya. They are not called Apurusheya because nobody wrote them. They are called Apurusheya because knowledge revealed in them is the ultimate truth and therefore it does not belong to a certain person but is universal.
Originally published at https://stoicsadhu.com on July 20, 2019.
