Prabhupāda: In which point the students may possibly object?
David Lawrence: Well, I've mentioned a few points on which . . . you know, obviously, I've studied a bit more deeply than the average student, because of the university and all this sort of business, which gives a particular form of knowledge.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
David Lawrence: Let me think of one . . . yes, one that I asked, which I know Mukunda has already answered for me, but we need it in the teachers' pack, of course, is the fact of the dating of the Vedas. You know, people like some of the archaeologists such as A. L. Basham and Mortimer Wheeler maintain that the Harrapa dig, so to speak, in the Indus Valley and Mahenjo-Daro and all those towns, show the dating of the Vedas in fact to be a great deal later, you know, and therefore to take away—some people would say this—to deprive the Vedas of a certain amount of authority because they no longer, according to these men, would appear to be the most ancient religious scriptures in the world. And that, that sort of question, you know, which . . .
Prabhupāda: Veda means not religion; Veda means knowledge. So if you can trace out the history of knowledge, then you can trace out what is the date of Veda. Can you trace out? When . . .? Which is the date when knowledge began? Can you trace out?
David Lawrence: I wouldn't think they could.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
David Lawrence: I wouldn't think they could.
Prabhupāda: So how you can trace out the history of Vedas? Vedas means knowledge. Vedas means knowledge. So first of all find out from which date knowledge began. Then you find out the date of the Vedas.
David Lawrence: Yes, it seemed to me . . . I tried to read, certainly, A. L. Basham on this, and . . .
Prabhupāda: Those who know Sanskrit, they know what is the meaning of Veda. Veda means knowledge. Vetti veda-vid jñāne. Jñāna means knowledge. That means . . . the history of Veda means from the date of creation of this material world. Now find out the date of creation of the material world. Approximately, (laughs) nobody can give what is the date of.
We can, we cannot . . . date of Brahmā, he got the, first of all, the Vedic knowledge. Now, one day of Brahmā you cannot calculate. One day of Brahmā. And the . . . when Brahmā's night is there, there is devastation up to some extent. So again in the daytime of Brahmā, that creation takes place. There are two kinds of devastation. One devastation is at the night of Brahmā, and one final devastation is the whole cosmic manifestation finished. So these teeny people, they are after the dates of Vedas, and that is ludicrous, that is . . . (laughs)
David Lawrence: Yes. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: Just like there are many microbes, they grow in the evening and die just in the day beginning. So whole night is their span of life. So our life is like that. What history you can write? Therefore, we receive Vedic knowledge from the authorities. And what is the value of these dates?
David Lawrence: (laughs) Indeed. I mean it's the sort of thing that Western scholars excel in, isn't it?
Prabhupāda: Suppose if you try to trace out when the human being began calling "mother." Can you trace out the history?
Śyāmasundara: They try to take away from the Vedas by making it seem very young so that the Bible is older. They think that Vedas came from Bible, many scholars.
Prabhupāda: Oh? These rascals think like that?
David Lawrence: Yes, you see they say that the . . . because the Āryans came from or passed through at least the Middle East, that in fact some of the older parts of the Old Testament predate, so they say, and indeed some of the Egyptian, higher, some of the better Egyptian stuff . . .
Prabhupāda: So one should transcend these, what is called, historical references. They calculate in Darwin's theory.
David Lawrence: Darwin's theory's out now, isn't it? (laughs) It's considered old fashioned now. They dispense with these theories as quickly as most people do their newspaper each day.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes.