Vedas - An Unbiased View (Part 23)

Madhva Siddhānta criticism on Cāruvāka, the Materialists continued and Madhva Siddhānta vs Buddhism/Jainism

In this Part-23: Cāruvāka criticism continued. Cāruvāka who don't even accept Dharma-adharma will cause only mutual crimes in the society and is very dangerous to the humanity. A belief system which don't even believe in right and wrong cannot be called a religion at all.

Buddhism and Jainism believes in Dharma-adharma (right and wrong) however they don't believe in eternal words or Vedās. In this case, there is no basis for their preaching on Dharma and adharma.

They believe the words of their Preceptors as the basis for Dharma-adharma. This is impractical and impossible because human knowledge independent of Vedās is limited to sense perception and perception based inference only. Dharma-adharma are not perceived by humans. So, the one who preached these Dharma and adharma is to be imagined omniscient. However, by our experience, we see defects like nescience, bias, cheating nature, arrogance, cruelty etc in the humans. It is our own experience that humans are defective and not omniscient. Hence, preachings of humans independent of eternal Vedās cannot be accepted as the basis for right and wrong.

If they proceed to argue that their Preceptors are omniscient only, then how can they prove it? A person himself cannot say he is omniscient and that has to be certified by someone else. So, someone who certifies should be omniscient as well to assess another person. A LKG cannot certify someone as a PhD. Another PhD is required to certify. This will lead to endless regression.

For example, if a person A is imagined to be omniscient, to prove it, a person B shall certify A's omniscience. So, what is the eligibility criteria of certifying person? He shall be omniscient as well. In this case, how B will be proven omniscient? Somebody named C shall certify that B is omniscient and D shall certify that C is omniscient and so on.....This results in endless regression and no one can be proven omniscient. On the contrary, our own experience says humans are not omniscient. Hence, there is no point in going on imagining several things to prove a person imagined as omniscient.

Hence, religions that don't accept in eternal words as basis for Dharma-adharma miserably fail because they can't establish the basis for their Dharma-adharma.

Instead of building the imaginations leading to endless regression, it is comparably better and simple to imagine one thing that the Vedās are eternal. However, it does not stop with this advice and one imagination. Eternity of Vedās is logically debated further and proven by Śrī Madhvācārya which will be seen in the succeeding episodes, proving that Vedās are not imagined to be eternal but actually are eternal.