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.