What can we do to naturalize the Vedic Words doctrine? Why do I call it a doctrine? It is a firmly fixed rock to which the crampons of epideictic thought are attached. The Vedas are there forever, with each emission of the universe they remain unchanged. They are apoureesha (not of human origin). They act as the secret core of things that makes things to be what they are. In a sense they are the esoteric Godelian axiom. All this mundane reality rests on them, the secret seed of things. They are the ground of grounding. (cf. general post on the topic of 'vedic words' etc: vedic words )
It is then not a surprise to find that Sankara’s teaching is similar to that of Plato’s. There is a realm of ideas. There must be. That doctrine to be naturalized must be put to the test of empiricism. What do we actually do? What is the procedure by which we gain the use of general concepts, ideas, universals or whatever you are having yourself?
The pramana upamana (comparison) is a good place to start. What make comparison possible, a procedure that we can operate? May I suggest that the ultimate comparison is identity as paradoxical as that may sound. A thing is found to be the same as itself. It is what it is. We know a thing as that thing by the fact that it is that thing. Our first encounter with an entity is to accept that it is. That is the default position true for all awareness even mistaken awareness. Next step ontologically is to recognise it as a ‘some’ thing or as having an identity. Does that not seem in-duh-bitable? Such is philosophy with its fascination for the process of turning the obvious into the mysterious.
A thing is what it is. The being or existence element though never found un-composed is the ontic, the ( ti on: Gk) what it is the ontological. This initial identity spawns other non-numerical identities using as aids the striking qualities of the original. The ur-thing is the natural kind that is not a composition of its qualities or attributes.
Identity does not arise in a temporal sense. It is now and for all time the ground of upamana. The identity of a thing with itself is eternal, has no beginning and does not last. Vedic in short if we take that expression as a metaphor.
