apaurusheya
अपौरुषेय apauruṣeya'Not of human origin': the doctrine that the Vedas are authorless and beginningless, heard by the seers rather than composed by them.
Where this term appears
- Shruti and Smriti: what counts as Hindu scripture? Scriptures
The tradition holds it to be revealed, not composed, and the technical term for that claim is apaurusheya , "not of a man." The Vedas, on this view, were not authored.
- What are the Vedas? Scriptures
Apaurusheya ( a-pow-ru-SHAY-ya ): "not of human origin", authorless, without a personal maker.
- Āgama and Veda: two revelations Lineages
… enterprise was the defence of Vedic authority, held that the Veda is apauruṣeya , without any author human or divine, and therefore free of the errors that any author would introduce.
- How the Vedas Were Preserved History
The tradition holds it to be apaurusheya , not of human authorship: eternal sound, existing before and beyond any person, which the ancient rishis did not invent but heard , and passed on.
- The History of Sanatana Dharma: A Timeline History
The tradition speaks of the Vedas as apauruṣeya , without human author, eternal and revealed, and of the events of the epics as literal history in a vast cycle of ages.
- Against the Page Treatise
The tradition's own account is that the Veda is apaurusheya , "not of human authorship," eternal, heard rather than made, beyond the page from the start.
- The Book That Was Never Written Treatise
The Vedas are called apaurusheya ( a-pow-rush-eya ), "not of human authorship," sometimes rendered "not man-made." The Mimamsa school, the school most concerned with the authority of the Veda, pushed this to it…
- The Layers of the Word Treatise
The tradition insists the Veda is apaurusheya , "not of human making", and yet it remembers the human names attached to it.