आगमे विश्वासटिप्पन्यः

2 approaches

When someone raises the question of interpolations in a sacred text, there are two kinds of responses one can take–one of them looks faithful to tradition but rightly causes ridicule, while the other is respectable and broadens our conceptions:

This text was composed as a whole by one author within a short period of time (few months, few years) within his lifetime. This will not hold up to be the case and you have essentially bought into the “one-text, one author” conception of canonicity.+++(4)+++ This text was received as a whole, therefore what was added into this ‘whole’ later can alone constitute an interpolation. Now, it becomes easy for the other person to go: “This small core of the text is the original ‘whole’. Everything else was added to it”.
A text can be composed by multiple authors over multiple generations. Its being attributed to a single author pertains to a higher plane and what it teaches us is that the received text (despite being composed over centuries) is to be treated as a unity and perceived as having a single intent (as embodied through the ahistorical, but nonetheless ’true’, single author). What ratifies its completed and canonical status is the consensus of the lineages associated with, and inheriting, the text.

It will be seen that the skilful theologian who takes the 2nd approach outlined above is the genuine exemplar of faith. He can take the Veda and Agama, for instance, appreciate that they may have been composed across centuries by hundreds of minds and yet see the unity in them because he actually and fully believes in a single, guiding hand (Ishvara) that shapes and controls those hundreds of minds across history.

I have a huge problem with how Western/Western-inspired scholars have, along the lines of biblical scholarship, resorted to these definitions of “interpolation” & “genuineness”. When we say that Y has been interpolated into X, it implies that X was already with a fixed form at the time Y was being interpolated. Some now harbor this strange belief that the entire veda came down as such & that this follows from tradition.

Divine inspiration checks

Even for statements which can be very reasonably held to be a much later insertion, it must be determined if it is an inspired statement or an interpolation by someone with a Hetu (ulterior motive).

Intrusiveness & Time

But it is not hard to appreciate the idea that a 3400 year old interpolation in a 3500 year old text is likely to be an “update” by very near descendants of the group of ppl responsible for composing the original text. These near descendants are actual practitioners of the tradition embodied in that text and incredibly close to the generation which produced it. We see them as, more or less, as part of the same historical continuum simply because they are part of the same lineage/clan.

In contrast, the 200 year old or even the 1000 year old insertion in a 3500 year old text are likely to be seen as intrusive/alien.

Freezes

Insertions & generation of new texts can be divinely inspired but these best take place quietly in the confines of the circles of Śiṣṭas & such blessed ones (case in point: Tirucendūr Sthalapurāṇam in tamizh, which is written as coming from Suta’s mouth & glorify the Trisvatantra Brāhmaṇas/Mukkānis—the miraculous legacy of the author & Murugan’s grace is attested by his contemporaries). With the mass-level exposure of the Śāstras, this isolated atmosphere, conducive for such inspired acts, is long gone. It may not be impossible (though I think it is) but it’s certainly extremely difficult.

As to why it has stopped, it’s the same reason why the Veda grew over generations as attested in four Purāṇas but had now frozen for good: see: https://x.com/ghorangirasa/status/1177203984341159936?s=46

To put that last point very very crudely using a mundane expression, a watched pot never boils. We are nowhere at the level of maturity or broadness of spirit to comprehend how the divine can work through human minds & hands.

The divinity of the Purāṇas then stops interacting in this way. No longer will we have a stotra inserted several centuries “after the fact”, which, when recited, engenders miraculous experiences & changes in our lives as if it was ever a part of the text since time immemorial.

That mode of interaction, that mode of blessing, is therefore gone. What we can do is to relish the depth of the Purāṇas in the light of the Veda & Āgama & Sampradāya wisdom & inspire realization of the Divine for those who have Yogyata in this birth.

Rigid periods

A closely related issue is that some of us have divided our textual history into these rigid periods. The “saMhitA”, the “brAhmaNa & AraNyaka”, the “upaniSad”, the “smRti & kalpasUtra” & the “purANa” periods, with the mahAbhArata, of course, looming over a no. of these periods. I’m not denying that there were chronological periods where certain texts were predominantly being revealed/composed. Of course, there were. All I am saying is that these periods cannot be so neatly compartmentalized.

We already know that purANa is mentioned in shatapatha brAhmaNa & other sources. We know that the earliest citation of an individual purANa by name is that of the vAyu in shAMkhAyana-sUtra bhASyam. What if the maitrAyaNIya-saMhitA-bhAga was still organically growing in tandem with this core of the paurANika-saMhitA & with part of the gRhya/dharmasUtra corpus (where you see so-called paurANika concepts of gaNanAtha, skanda, nandI, etc becoming prominent)?

We should not preclude this way of thinking about texts. After all, 3 purANas, at least, explicitly speak of how the RSis saw mantras while RSiputras, due to their differentiation in understanding, came up with a diverse canon of brAhmaNas, mantrapravacanas & kalpasUtras. Those three paurāṇika accounts (vāyu, matsya & liṅga) literally sounds like they are complaining about the ṛṣiputra-s mixing up mantra & brāhmaṇa portions in the sam̐hitā texts of KYV as well as them coming up with a huge variety of brāhmaṇas & kalpasūtras.

Very very interestingly, these accounts also situate this “proliferation of the vaidika canon” (massive growth of brāhmaṇa/kalpasūtra corpus) alongside the splitting of a single purāṇa into many as well as the proliferation of various smṛtis!! So, at least some of our forebears had preserved an extraordinary memory of the growth, development & evolution of texts. But these developments are not seen as interpolations but growth; albeit growth which may have led to undue complexity & some uncertainty.

Our accounts

It’s a pity that very little attention had been paid to our very own account of how our texts grew & came to be. Today, you speak of textual development/evolution & certain less developed hominids start accusing you of being nāstika & other things they don’t get themselves.

Vedas

Source: TW

Let me handle that 1st. I do not know where people get this idea that veda being apauruSeya/nitya (this is one of the stances in tradition) means that the entire veda we have today came down at the same time. Accepting this would actually result in rejecting passages of shruti, which explicitly speak about how certain sUktas were seen by vishvAmitra at a particular point in time & other sUktas were seen by him at a later time & several other examples.

One could hold, as a matter of theology/faith, that the entire veda is eternally, present in brahman as his potency/jñāna & also hold (as numerous statements in veda require us to do) that different parts of veda were seen on this earth at different points in time. Anyone who unnecessarily sees a contradiction here lacks a basic sense of intellectual rigor & precision. Having disposed of that issue, let us get back to the issue of interpolation.

So, if different parts of veda were seen by different sages over a period of time, then we cannot speak of an interpolation of Y in X, when there was no fixed X as such. So, when did the maitrAyaNIya saMhitA effectively freeze before we can call additions “interpolations”?

Let us take kenopaniSat. Who doesn’t accept it as shruti? There is continuity between it & the rest of the upaniSat canon. But we accept that it was legitimately revealed to a RSi as part of the same milieu when the concepts of umA, etc were also being revealed. So, why couldn’t these gAyatrIs have been seen, albeit at a far later time, when what we call paurANika concepts (hastimukha gaNesha, etc) were also being “seen”/revealed in that period?

Freeze

Having said all this, it doesn’t mean the vaidika canon just kept growing all the way & never attained any certainty of form. The revelation of sam̐hitā/brāhmaṇa/āraṇyaka texts definitely halted sometime before the common era. It was the upaniṣad category that still grew long after the era. No foolproof way to draw the magic line in time, which clearly demarcates legitimate upaniṣad texts from genuinely “late”, concocted ones. I will use the various upaniṣad quotations in the works of vedāntīs & other well-established ācāryas to derive this “magic line”. So, a casualty of this approach would be the kalisaṇṭaraṇopaniṣat, which is completely unknown before the 1600s.

Puranas

Simplistic skepticism is the denial of the divinity of the Purāṇas on the grounds of interpolations, contradictions, gradual growth of the Paurāṇika canon over centuries, etc.

Simple traditionalism is mere acceptance of Purāṇas with zero thought given to the questions of interpolations, multi-generational layers in the texts, etc.

Beyond both of the above, a person of matured Śraddhā is able to appreciate how a text could be both attributed to a single author & yet also be found to have been composed over centuries by dozens of authors. Such a person can understand how an “interpolation” is at the same time a legitimate & divine part of a text. He understands that even if the Purāṇas contain interpolations or contradictions, they are, on the whole, divine. Which is why even in recent times (several decades ago), a wealthy man with an incurable condition (unable to swallow food) was healed after he commissioned the printing of the 18 Purāṇas to gift them to Vipras, as per the advice of the Kāñci-Mahāsvāmī.+++(4)+++

Utility despite interpolation

Just as damaged Liṅgas/Mūrtis may still radiate their grace to seekers, so may the Purāṇas. But we should do repairs to the text through careful & skilled study (even as the Uttarakāmikāgama asks an Ācārya to do), as we would for the damaged Liṅgas/Mūrtis.

Agama

Ultimately, what endows the Āgama with canonical status is the approval of Śaiva Śișțas/Āptas. The Kāmika as we know today has been accepted by Ādiśaiva-Vipras and great Śișțas such as Nigamajñāna-Sambandha-Śivācārya.

This does not mean a scripture cannot have “interpolations” but, in my opinion, from a theological point of view, merely “written later” is not enough to found a case for an interpolation.