वेदों की प्राचीनता एवं काल-निर्णय / ओरायन (लोकमान्य बाल गंगाधर तिलक - खगोलीय वैदिक शोध)

452 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. in the latter respect that we have the different versions of Kaṭhas, Kalâpas, Mudakas, Pippalâdas and so on. This view is opposed to that of the Mîmâṁsakas who hold both sense and order of words to be eternal. But Patanjali is led to reject the doctrine of the eternity of the order of words, because in that case we cannot account for the different versions or Shâkhâs of the same Veda, all of which are considered to be equally authoritative though their verbal readings are some- times different. Patanjali, as explained by his commentators Kaiyyaṭa and Nâgojî Bhaṭṭa, ascribes this difference in the different versions of the Veda to the loss of the Vedic texts in the pralayas or deluges which occasionally overtake the world, and their reproduction or repromulgation, at the beginning of each new age, by the sages, who survived, according to their remembrance.* Each manvantara or age has thus a Veda of its own which differs only in expression and not in sense from the ante-diluvian Veda, and that different recensions of co-ordi- nate authority of the same Veda are due to the difference in the remembrance of the Ṛiṣhis whose names are associated with the different Shâkhâs, and who repromulgate, at the beginning of the new age, the knowledge inherited by them, as a sacred trust, from their forefathers in the preceding Kalpa. This view substantially accords with that of Vyâsa as recorded in the verse from the Mahâbhârata quoted above. The later exposi- tors of the different schools of philosophy have further developed these views of the Sûtra-writers and criticised or defended the doctrine of the self-demonstrated authority of the scriptural texts (shabda-pramâṇa) in various ways. But we cannot

• Patanjali's words are,—ननु चोक्तं न हि च्छन्दांसि क्रियन्ते नित्यानि च्छन्दांसीति। यद्यप्यर्थो नित्यो या त्वसौ वर्णानुपूर्वी साऽनित्या। तद्भेदाच्चैतद्भव- यति काठकं कालापकं मौदकं पैप्पलादकमिति॥ Nâgojî Bhaṭṭa in his gloss quotes the verse— प्रतिमन्वन्तरं चैषा श्रुतिरन्याऽभिधीयते; and observes that धाता यथापूर्वमकल्पयत् (Rig. X, 190, 3) does not require us to assume that the order of words was the same in the new Kalpa. See Muir O. S. T., Vol. III, pp. 96-97.