Date: 13th September 1882
Location: Udaipur (Rajasthan)
[Introduction: Below given contents are extracted from Swami Dayananda Saraswati’s famous biography compiled by Pandit Lekh Ram. The contents are translated from Hindi for the benefit of English knowing readers. This is a part of a written debate the great Swami had for 3 days with Maulavi Abdul Rahaman, a scholar of Islam who was at that time Civil Judge of Udaipur. Swami tried to clarify the doubts the opponent had regarding the divine character and the process of revelation of the Vedas.- Bhavesh Merja]
Maulavi: How one can prove based on knowledge and intellect that God gave the light of Vedas to four seers?
Swami: The effect cannot exist without the cause. So, even for knowledge, there must be some cause and the cause of knowledge should be eternal. The eternal knowledge of God is evident when His creation is beheld. He is the efficient cause of the entire creation and so is His knowledge the cause of the knowledge we the humans possess. Hadn’t he given the knowledge to those seers in the beginning of the creation, the stream of these books of knowledge which correspond to the laws of nature would not have flowed further at all.
Maulavi: Did God teach those four seers one by one or together at the same time?
Swami: God being Omnipresent, taught these four seers separately as well as one by one in orderly or sequential manner because those seers had been with limited intellect and so they were incapable to learn or assimilate so many branches of knowledge at a time. Moreover, they had different potential to acquire the intellect or understanding. Therefore, they sometimes learned jointly at the same time and sometimes understanding individually kept on learning jointly. As the four Vedas are having the individual identities, same way God too taught each of these four seers one-one Veda.
Maulavi: What time did God take to teach the Vedas to those four seers?
Swami: It took time adequately required for getting maturity of their intellect.
Maulavi: Whether the teaching was a process of mental inspiration or through words and letters etc. which we find in the Vedas? I mean to know whether the teaching involved the process of word-meaning-relation i.e. the knowledge of the words, their meanings and their relations with the corresponding objects or substances.
Swami: God taught the words which we read in the Vedas and along with the words also taught their meanings and their relations with the corresponding objects or substances.
Maulavi: To pronounce the words, vocal organs like mouth, tongue etc are required. Does God who is supposed to be a teacher possess such organs or not?
Swami: God doesn’t possess any such organs because He is formless – body less. He is devoid of such physical instrumentality of pronouncement, even for imparting the knowledge to these four seers.
Maulavi: Then how the word was uttered by God?
Swami: The way it is spoken, listened and understood in the soul and mind.
Maulavi: Without knowing the language, how the words were received in their souls?
Swami: The words were inspired in their souls by God, because He is Omnipresent.
Maulavi: In this discussion, we find two things which go against inference or reasoning: first, God gave the teachings of the Vedas to only those four men and that too in a language which was not a language of any nation or any race. Second, God instilled those words into the minds of those four seers, which were not known earlier by them and they understood their meanings. If we go on accepting such things, then we would be compelled even to accept all those things like miracles which are against dictates of inference and reasoning prevalent in all sects, as true.
Swami: These two things are not against inference or logic. Both are true. Whatever is expressed through tongue or by the soul cannot be possible without words. When God revealed the words say the Vedas to those four seers, they had the inherent capacity to grasp those words. With the help of that capacity to grasp, they could acquire those words of the Vedas in accordance with their capacities, through the grace of God. Moreover, one should know that the necessity of the physical means of pronunciation and hearing is arisen only when there exists some distance in space between the speaker and the hearer. Because if the speaker doesn’t speak through his mouth and the listener doesn’t have ears to listen, there will be no scope for any teaching or listening. But God being Omnipresent resides in the souls. Distance wise He is never away from the souls. So, God expressed in those four souls of the seers the words of His eternal knowledge i.e. the Vedas and taught their meanings also. A person having knowledge of any foreign language is able to teach that language to a person who doesn’t know that language; same way God who is all-knowing – Omniscient and also the knower of that language of His knowledge, taught the same to those four seers. Therefore, this theory of revelation of the Vedas is not against the dictates of the inference or the reasoning and no one can prove this process of revelation of the Vedas unreasonable or against the dictates of inference. There are four Braahman-books of the Vedas (Satapath, Gopath etc) which are very ancient works of sages and are acceptable to the extent they are in agreement with the four Vedas, otherwise not. These Brahman books can be rightly called the ‘Puraans’ means the ancient works. Bhaagawat, Padma and other so-called Puraans are actually not entitled to be called Puraans, as they are actually recent books and being against the natural laws and dictates of knowledge are also not worthy of acceptance.