Evils of Written Vedas? (apology for cross-posting)

[Shrikant Bahulkar]

I seriously doubt whether the mantra AV. 19.72.1 can point to a Medic
"book" to be taken out from a chest and to be deposited again in it. The
mantra is :

    Yasmaat ko;saad ud abharaama veda.m tasminn antar ava dadhma enam /
     k.rtam i.s.ta.m brahma.no viirye.na tena maa devaas tapasaa' vateha
//
The mantra mentions the lifting up of the veda from some receptacle.
Tarek Wani wrote:

> Further to Madhav Deshpande's posting, the Atharvaveda
> 19.72.1 alludes to getting the Vedic book from a chest
> (koza). The injunction against writing must be properly
> deconstructed: It only means that the student should
> not use the written text as a crutch, and commit it to memory.
>
> Deconstruction also requires that words like pApa not
> be simplistically translated to evil. `pApa" is
> whatever is contingent on the body. The idea of learning
> Veda is to rise above such contingence and
> learning to be independent of the written text was a
> part of that training.
>
> -tAraka
>
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