The Strength and Weakness of Learning by Hearing

The Vedic culture relies heavily on learning through hearing. One of the primary pramanas or sources of evidence in Vedic epistemology is sabda-pramana or "hearing from authority".

The strength of learning through hearing from authority is that you can get knowledge that supersedes your investigative power. Other primary pramanas include pratyaksha - empirical observation - and anumana - logical inference. The limitations of these two can be superseded by hearing. For example, if experience is a good teacher, someone else's experience can be an even better one, because I don't have to spend time getting it directly, or run the risk or results involved. That's the whole idea of reading books, or attending classes in anything.

However, the weakness of a tradition that relies heavily on "hearing from authority" as the primary source of evidence, and neglects the other forms, is that it can become distorted over time. There are two stories, quite similar, that illustrate this:

The cat and the basket

At a wedding one day a cat was running through the proceedings, making a disturbance. The mother of the bride caught it beneath a basket and left it there for the duration. Many years later, when the daughter of the then-bride was being married, amidst all the other ceremonial arrangements her mother said: "Wait, something is missing!" then placed a cat under a basket. "Ah yes, now everything is there!"

The cat and the Bhagavad-gita class

A saintly scholar would give class on Bhagavad-gita each evening beneath a tree near a village. He had a pet cat, and this cat would sometimes run through the crowd, making a disturbance. As a result the sage began to tie the cat to the tree during the class. After some time the speaker shuffled off his mortal coil. One of his disciples continued to give the Bhagavad-gita class under the tree, and continued to tie the cat to the tree during the class. After some time the cat passed away, and the disciple bought another cat. After three generations a disciple wrote a paper on the sacred tradition of tying a cat to the tree while giving a class on Bhagavad-gita.

Tradition vs Hearing

"Tradition" is a different pramana, or source of evidence, distinguished from authoritative hearing by Vedic philosophers such as Madhvacarya, Jiva Goswami, and their successor Baladeva Vidyabhusana. The distinction is also treated in the story of the "Govardhan-lila" in the Srimad Bhagavatam. Krishna encounters his father preparing to perform a ceremony, and enquires whether it is based on some authoritative scripture, or is merely "traditional".

Distinguishing between things that are eternal principles and things that are temporal applications can be tricky. In Sanskrit the error on one side or the other - either mistakenly rejecting an essential principle or accepting a temporal practice in its place - is called niyamagraha.

One of the ways to distinguish between an eternal principle and a temporary principle is to examine whether support exists something in its particular form in an accepted scripture. Scripture represents aspects of the tradition that have been elevated or recognised as having longevity or universal application.

If something appears in the tradition, but has no scriptural support in its particular form, then it is likely to be traditional, or temporal, rather than scriptural, or eternal, in basis.

There is a saying from Christian culture that "of 100 men, 1 will read the Bible, and 99 will read the Christian". It is a fact that most people receive the majority of their information and construct their worldview through social and cultural cues. The effect of this is that over the long term cultures, especially ones with a strong bias toward "accepting knowledge independent of rational or empirical justification" (both hearing and tradition are subsets of this category, which explains their easy confusion) "accrete", or gather practices over time.

This is especially pronounced when the method of interaction with other cultural and religious tradition is "syncretic assimiliation", as it is in the case of the Vedic culture. The current manifestation of the Vedic culture is a mashup of many different cultural and religious traditions, which are woven into a metanarrative. The metanarrative and the process of its application is the real essence of Vedic culture, rather than any particular temporal manifestation. An example of this process in action is the assimilation of Christianity. Christianity is woven into the Vedic tradition through syncretic assimilation. Jesus becomes a saktyavesa-avatar and is accepted as part of the plethora of valid objects of religious veneration, joining the Deities of other religious traditions that have been encountered by the Vedic culture during its expansion through time and space.

Vedic culture in a contemporary context does not mean going back in time, but rather applying the timeless principles to current conditions.

The accretion of "practices unjustified by scripture" creates a heavy burden that can obscure the essence of the Veda and the original purpose of the cultural traditions. For this reason periodic reform is needed. All human cultures contain change resistant forces which give the culture a form. Without these, cultural form would not exist. These cultural forces exist in tension with change agent forces.

The dynamic tension between these two forces gives rise to cultural adaptation.

Ultimately valid adaptations are justified through efficacy. "Innovation flies, deviation dies". Reformers justify their adaptations on the basis on existing scripture in order to remain within the tradition, but their explanations of scripture and its application are not accepted by everyone.

That's why Jagannatha Puri priests are burning effigies of Srila Prabhupada at the moment.

Anyway, that's my thought for the morning.