We have noticed that our poor comrade, Santosh, who runs the laughable sham of a blog called the “mahApaSupatastra” in cahoots with the likes of Subbu et al, has poured frustration and venom on our blog in the form of an equally idiotic “FAQ” (click on this link to see it). Far be it for us to refrain from addressing this. Let us see what he writes and highlight the salient features.
COMMENTS BY THE MAHAPASHUPATASTRA AUTHOR AND OUR REPLY
ACCUSATION #1: They had stopped publishing comments of two persons who debated with them – Sri Abhijit and Adbhutam (Sri Subbu ji – a respected Advaitin) and warned to stop publishing comments from another person who is a liberal Sri Vaishnava viz. Sri Suresh Srinivasamurthy. Those three instances are known to me, but there would surely be many more voices suppressed by them. See below how one of the two Humble Vaishnavas warns him of not publishing, and how the other humble vaishnava brands him as Shaiva in guise of Sri Vaishnava (But the reality is Sri Suresh is a Vishishtadvaitin but with a liberal heart and open mind for other philosophies and all Gods). But for our friend Aaryamaa whosoever questions his articles is a “Shaiva”
ANSWER: So, the three stooges unite? Subbu is no “respected advaitin”. There is a saying – in a desert where everything is barren, a cactus becomes known as a very great plant. However, that does not take into account the Banyan Tree which stands towering in a forest of impressive trees.
Subbu lacks the basic knowledge of advaita and is a shaiva. Suresh Srinivasamurthy is no Sri Vaishnava as he does not accept Vishnu paratva (and to this date, has NOT said anything to the effect of retracting his incorrect misinterpretation of Ramanuja). Then where is the question of it being anything else?
And note, we never supressed their comments. We duly answered each and every one of their objections and then only signed off saying that will do. None of their objections were left unrefuted. It is only when they kept repeating the same rubbish, we told them we would not publish their comments.
Subbu contradicts Adi Shankara and Suresh contradicts Sri Ramanuja. If you want to prove us wrong, quote from any of Shankara’s works like we have to show Shiva paratva. Or explain why Sri Ramanuja calls Shiva as a jiva and subject to pralaya in Vedartha sangraha.
This is ignored by the author.
ACCUSATION#2: And recently I received information (news) from someone who posted it to me as a comment shown below. The below person has informed me that his comment where he questioned their one article titled “Lord Rama - The Heart of Rishi Svetasvatara” as copied and stolen from another blogger’s article titled “Lord Rudra - The Heart of Rishi Svetasvatara”, was not published (Link of the original article: http://hara-hara-mahadev.blogspot.in/2010/03/lord-rudra-heart-of-rishi-svetasvatara.html).Surprisingly, (to the best of my knowledge) when they had first published that article, the statement “(This article is a response to a shaiva article that claims that the shvetAshvatara upaniShad talks of Shiva's supremacy.)” was not present and later on it was found to be inserted to make a “copy” look a “refutation”, most probably it was done after this user had commented on that.
ANSWER: Well, it is very funny to say that an article which claims that the deity of the svetasvatAra is srI rAma is a copy of an article which says the deity is Shiva! Only a brainless person would call it a copy when we clearly used the work of srI vedAnta desikan to refute shaiva nonsense and misinterpretation of the Upanishad.
The fact of the matter is that the article was a *refutation* of the article on the shaiva blog. We followed the footsteps of the great rAmAnujAchArya – if Adi Shankara quoted vishNu purAna to establish advaita, srI rAmAnuja would quote the *same* purAna to refute it and establish vishishtadvaita. Similarly, we quoted the same mantras that the shaiva blog had done and established vishNu paratva.
Now, when we uploaded the article, we had intended to insert the link to the shaiva blog. Only later on, we noticed it was missing and amended it quickly. A human error. And neither is it a copy in anyway – why would we copy a shaiva blog when our philosophy is different? And indeed, note that the shaiva author simply copies and pastes translations of Griffith and max muller – firstly, those interpretations are rubbish and we never copy indologists and secondly, it only means even the shiva article was not even original!
We simply took inspiration of the title “heart of svetasvatara rishi” to *MOCK* these Vishnu-hating shaivas in jest. It is like how an advaitin wrote “Shata Bhushani” to refute “Shata Dhushani” – note the similarlity in names.
Only shaivas clueless of the vedAntic tradition and one who has never read the material contained in the two articles would say we copied anything.
And then, the author of this trashy tirade chooses to defend his own inability to approve comments of opposing views by saying the following,
But I appreciate the tolerance limits of the authors of blog! But fortunately or unfortunately I have a pretty busy life and hence I do not give any room for anyone to engage me in vitanDa-vAda (illogical arguments) and waste my time.
Well then, you accept we have approved the ridiculous comments of Subbu, yourself and that Suresh Srinivasamurthy and call us intolerant for warning them when it got repetitive. But you don’t allow a single comment (and in fact *deleted* our comments in your blog dated Mar’13-Apr’13 after trying to debate with us and miserably failing), and then say we indulge in vitanDa vAda. Typical Veerashaiva logic!
ACCUSATION#3: These two “humble” bhagavatas are over enthusiastic to convert Adi Shankara into Vaishnavism and christen him as ‘vaishnava’. But their articles which try to prove Shankara as a Vaishnava are very convincing for any reader who is not learned in Advaitic works. I must admit that their reasoning is outwardly very convincing and an unwary reader could easily get into their trap in believing Shankara to be a Vaishnava. My inner-self (antarAtmAn) and my heart had never agreed to those claims.
ANSWER: Well, we have proven it in our articles beyond question. And what is your argument? You say your “antarAtman” does not agree. And then you add – “Advaita is not my priority, it is out of scope for me”.
Well, I believe you just refuted your own claims there.
And then he attacks HBB with a spiteful comment typical of a vitanDa vAdin:
“Humble Bhagawata Bandhu”(the owner of blog), hails from a Smartha family and hence if someday his father comes to know about his write-ups which try to prove Shankara as a vaishnava; I am sure uncle would slap him for going against what his family has been practicing and preaching and for his thoughts being against the standard faith of that lineage (So, when we are sure that his own elders would not accept his theories, do we need to break our heads to refute him?).
Ha ha…no ability to come up with a decent argument and this is all he has – petty insults.
Important personal note from HBB: I rarely reveal personal details on this blog, since it is not the subject matter anyway. Even so, this is just for the record… Unlike Santosh who thinks I am living a double-faced hypocritic life, I have been clearly communicating my change of faith to Vaishnavism and Vishistadvaita to my relatives, including my father. They are pretty clear about my intentions and my convictions, and now know that I cannot and do not act contrary to it. The reason why my real full name, contact email address, etc. are not revealed is the following: (1) I do not see the need to, and (2) I do not want myself and my parents to be hassled on the topic of my religious convictions through channels other than this blog. Other than this, Santosh is baselessly accusing my father of being some kind of a tyrant who expects his adult son to accept his own beliefs blindly without critical examination.
OUR “DARK SECRETS”
Now begins a new rant where he tries to dramatically reveal our identities.
ACCUSATION#4: Subbu-Ji, a well admired and respected person in Advaitin circles, happened to post comments to blog where he disagreed with their pet-theory of calling Shankara as a Vaishnava and Advaita as a Vaishnavite doctrine. To his comment initially he was received with good hospitality by prefixing “Dear” and then “Shri” to his name and then praising his knowledge of Shankara Vedanta and traditions as shown below.But soon let’s see how the hospitality changed when he disagreed. No “Shri” no “Dear” as prefixes. The people who believed him as well read in Shankara Vedanta and hailing from Shankara mutts and tradition has become a “prachhanna Shaiva” because he disagrees with their opinion.
ANSWER: Well, the tradition of vedAnta allows inquiry. We saw Subbu’s posts initially on his blog and the net. All we saw was him quoting Shankara bhAshyas. We assumed he was a learned advaitin (despite obviously subscribing to modern day shaiva leanings) and therefore offered him respect. But what did he do? He did three things:
- We found out that he had, a few years back, posted in public saying that the rAsa leela of krishNa was a perverted act similar to some American lad on the news for sexual misconduct inappropriate to his age. Yes, he said that. It makes my hands tremble to write this, sadly enough.Any self-respecting Hindu would reject such perverted interpretations of the bhAgavatam. They would immediately see that Subbu stands shoulder-to-shoulder in this matter with the uncouth Christian missionaries who censure Sri Krishna Paramatma.
- He also told us that “Narayana Bhatta (Advaitin from the Kerala region and author of ‘nArAyaNIyam’) was peddling his wares in the name of Shankara” and “Jnanottama Mishra was wrong and I am right”
- Upon reading his works deeply, we found out he was no learned person as well. He merely copies and pastes chunks of Shankara Bhashyas.
Therefore, our opinions changed. Things change. Would any person respect him or care twopence about his opinions after this?
ACCUSATION#5: Another person Sri Suresh Srinivasamurthy who hails from Vishishtadvaita tradition of Ramanuja but is a liberal thinker and open minded person; when he posed some questions to these bloggers and despite he being very mild and courteous in behaviour he is also warned and branded as a Shaiva. See below how one of the two Humble vaishnavas warned him of not publishing his questions anymore, and how the other humble vaishnava branded him as ‘Shaiva’. For our friend Aaryamaa whosoever questions his articles is a “Shaiva”
ANSWER: This so called ‘liberal’ person adopts a superior attitude to us and laughably misinterprets Vishishtadvaita. Our shaiva opponent fails to note we gave him a fitting reply, quoting authentic tradition to which he had no answer. Of course, he keeps ignoring the fact that our replies are based on complete pramAnAs rather than emotion. To this day, this ‘liberal thinker’ has not come forward with a comment gracefully accepting that he was wrong about his interpretation of Sri Ramanuja (or at least that our position is honorable). If he does, we will publish his comment and take back our rebuke (we would even do this with anyone that we have rebuked, if they do so).
To Aaryamaa, anyone who questions vishNu paratva is a Shaiva. Of course. Even Shakta matham can be considered close to Shaiva. If you are a Saura (sun worshipper) as opposed to Shiva, you are free to clarify!
At this juncture, let us clarify one thing here. By no means we intend to use the term “Shaiva” as a name-calling term in the manner of Santosh’s/Subbu’s usage of “Vaishnava”. Our usage of the term ‘Shaiva’ to describe these ignorant persons is to show that their true inclinations are biased towards Shaivism while they are pose as advaitins (Santosh/Subbu’s case) or Vishistadvaitin (Suresh’s case). We acknowledge that there are genuine Shaivas who (1) are sincere in their faith that Shiva is superior and disagree with us honorably, and (2) are much more knowledgeable, unlike the venom-spitting Subbu and Santosh.
ACCUSATION#6: HBB does this every time. He quotes known and unknown persons out of context (including Shankara). He takes names of some sastry, some tirtha, some ananda, or some swami and says they have said something which matches his thoughts and hence his theory is validated, therefore you, the reader-folk are asked to accept his theory as the opinion of Sanatana Dharma! Who among the common reader-folk has time and energy to search in the vast ocean of books to actually find out under what context, in what sense that so-and-so person has said whatever has been quoted? Even the great personalities like Shankara are not spared. He quotes Shankara’s Bhagawad Gita Bhashya and misinterprets Shankara’s statements and derives conclusions like “Rudra, Aditya etc., are not worthy of worship (for Moksha)”, and “Vinayaka means Ganesha who is unfit to be worshiped” etc…
ANSWER: To an ignorant person, great scholars of the past will indeed be “some Sastry, some ananda or some swami”. This, coming from a person who runs a mahapashupatastra blog based on copying and pasting Griffith translations from sacred texts!
Also, note the bolded words. Does it not make sense that it is the duty of those who know the “vast ocean of books” (no ego intended) to help the common people who don’t know? And what legitimacy can the Mahapashupatastra blog claim when you openly say that you do not know what they write, and yet run a blog trying to interpret shastras your own sweet way?
Santosh, please classify yourself among the common reader. Because you too do not know anything other than copying and pasting from sacred texts.
After this, he tries to show that the “vinAyaka” in Shankara bhAshya does not refer to the popular ganEsha. Maybe he fails to note that our proof of Shankara’s Vaishnavatva does not hinge on that alone. We have proven his vaishnavatvam already, so enough said on that.
And if there is someone who scrutinizes HBB’s articles more critically than HBB himself and comes up with a fair rebuttal using genuine arguments, they are welcome. We can confidently vouch for the following: Every time HBB/Aaryamaa writes one, they strive to analyze their articles by coming up with and giving a fair consideration to as exhaustive a list of pUrvapakSha arguments as anyone can think of, as far as they can see. Hence, if a person can come up with a new genuine pUrvapakSha argument that we have not answered in our blog, they will be valued by us a million times more than the entire set of readers who have rated us favorably in the comments section here in this blog and elsewhere in the cyber/real world.
ON THE ISSUE OF THE INTERPOLATIONS ARTICLE
Our interpolations article has become famous among our opponents. This is probably because they do not have the intellectual capacity to refute us based on our interpretations and think this type of history research is the only area where they stand a chance. Not so.
Let us see what he has to say,
ACCUSATION#7: First, he quotes us as saying that we asked the readers to trust in our integrity and hence, we are misleading everyone.
ANSWER: Only an ignoramus would fail to notice that was merely a submission of politeness. We do not have the ego to claim we know everything even though by AchArya’s grace, we have covered everything. So we added a line saying that it is not possible to cover everything and to trust in our integrity. Also, it opens up the way for other readers to come and ask us things we have not covered.
Funny he doesn’t even get that.
ACCUSATION#8: We have mentioned that the incident of Arjuna offering flowers to Shiva as an interpolation. He tries to refute us by saying the following. Below, we quote him:
In Point no. 1 he quotes the Sanskrit Vyasa Mahabharata verse and then cleverly tries to take the discussion around the Tamil saint’s works in points 2 and 3. Further he takes us deep inside the Tamil-spider-web and talks about a “Commentary” OVER the Tamilian’s work of “tiruvAymozhi” and takes the Sanskrit verse present in that “commentary”. Then he compares this third level work with the first level work i.e., he compares this Sanskrit verse taken from someone’s commentary and tries to search that verse word by word in Vyasa’s Sanskrit Mahabharata (which is like comparing an apple with an orange) in point no. 6 and says that he failed to locate the Sanskrit words/expressions of a commentator’s mouth in the voice of Veda Vyasa And thus he trickily tries to condition our brain to accept what he wants us to accept i.e., to accept it as an interpolation.
ANSWER: He calls our approach misleading. Well, he has failed to get the article. Here is our simple methodology:
- We reject the conclusions of all modern indologists even if they are correct as their methodology is not right.
- Our first priority is to see whether a particular section is quoted by an ancient scholar belonging to the Advaita, Vishishtadvaita and Dvaita Vedanta (and possibly ancillary darshanas) prior to the 16th century. Anyone who professes to accept the Veda must accept whatever these scholars quote as authentic. We have already given reasons for this.
- If there are sections not quoted by these Acharyas, we see if Shaiva traditions have quoted them from the same scripture (for instance, if ancient shaivas quote shiva sahasranama from linga purana and not Mahabharata, that is not considered evidence)
- If this is also not there, we see whether these sections are quoted by popular tamil poets and scholars in *debate* as opposed to mere poetry and sectarian hymns. Nammazhwar for instance, was quoted in this context as the Thiruvaimozhi is considered a polemic and serious work as opposed to poetry.
- If this is also not there, we see whether this section is compatible to veda.
- If this section is not compatible to veda and also does not fulfil ANY of the first 5). We reject it as an interpolation even if it is in every current recension.
This is the vedic way of research. This is the case for the incident of Arjuna worshipping Shiva with flowers. It does not satisfy Points 2 and 3. It not only does not satisfy Point 4, but also we see that the poets and scholars referred to in Point 4 quote an incident that is the *EXACT OPPOSITE* of the shaiva incident.
And of course, the incident does not fulfil point 5 as well. Hence, due to inability to meet scrutiny of vaidikas, being contradictory to veda and ALSO with the evidence of a completely opposite incident in circulation among the ancient poets, we have reason to conclude the shaiva incident is an interpolation and the vaishnava story existed in all probability prior to it. Note, even if the latter is disputed, the former conclusion (that the shaiva incident is an interpolation) must be accepted if you are a vaidika. Furthermore, the vaishnava story actually complies with Point 5 of the criteria for acceptance – it does not contradict veda. Hence, there is a stronger case for acceptance, especially when the authors quote an ancient Sanskrit verse that they claim belongs to the shAstra (presumably the mahAbhArata) that describes the incident.
Then the author says these verses are present in the BORI edition and we have not searched well. Ha Ha…if we didn’t know that, would we have written this article?
And further, there is a vast difference between the verse quoted by our AcAryas, compared to the (related) verse available in the current recensions. The former says that the flowers offered at Krishna’s feet earlier were seen on Rudra’s crown later his dream (implying that Shiva, being a devotee of Vishnu, likes to adorn on his head anything that has the sparsha of Vishnu’s feet, like he did earlier with the river Ganga), while the latter says that flowers offered to Krishna were seen by the side of Rudra (intended to imply that all offerings reach Rudra as if he is the Supreme).
We have noted this when we first wrote the article, and unlike what Santosh thinks, we were perfectly capable of locating the modern version of that verse in the BORI critical electronic text and in fact did so. Santosh fails to see that our complaint is that this incident has been modified from the original version quoted by our AcAryas due to the reason mentioned above.
ACCUSATION#9: He cleverly OMITS the Parva name (as though he isn’t aware of) and uses the words “Arjuna already asked Krishna elsewhere” about who that being was who killed kauravas on his behalf and then raises a question on another chapter from Drona parva (where Arjuna had actually raised that question to Vyasa) and concludes saying “(When Krishna has already answered Arjuna) what was the need for him to ask Vyasa AGAIN?” [Note that he usesthe word “again”]. Thereby for the unwary readers he creates a doubt by his tricks and magic and makes them believethat the chapter where Vyasa had narrated the great Sata-Rudriya hymn to Arjuna is an interpolation!
ANSWER: Well, we don’t need to waste our breath on this as we have explained our position. Suffice to say genuine research seems like magic to the ignorant for sure!
Furthermore, in that same chapter, Krishna tells Arjuna all the glories of Mahadeva – that he is the lord of devas, the husband of Uma, very great, but Krishna also adds – “He is born of my (Krishna’s) wrath”. So, all that greatness still makes Rudra a jivA and inferior to Krishna, to whom he owes that greatness. Seems like our shaiva friend failed to point out that just like we highlighted in the article how Shaivas skip those words!
ACCUSATION#10: vyAsa explained Sata RudrIyam in the MahabhArata.
ANSWER: We have not only proven this is an interpolation, but also provided the true commentary of Sri Rudram on this website. No more on that.
ACCUSATION#11: Shiva says, “O hero, express the desire that dwelleth in thy heart. I will grant it. Except immortality alone, tell me as to the desire that is in thy heart.”To those words of Shiva this author has concluded that Shiva cannot grant Moksha. Shiva grants Moksha but theneed of the hour for Arjuna to seek from Shiva was not immortality, but it was to seek the most terrible weapon.
ANSWER: The interpretation that fits the Veda alone is authentic. The veda says “nArAyaNAt rudro jAyate” and “eko ha vai nArAyaNa AsIt, na brahma, neshAnaH”. The same mahAbhArata also says “visnurAtma bhagavato bhavasyAmitatejasaH” and also calls Rudra as “nArAyaNatmaka”, “krodhajaH”, “krodhasambhavaH” etc. Therefore, the fact that Arjuna was a sattvika prompted Rudra to clarify that he can grant anything BUT moksha.
To prove us wrong, first prove with shruti and smriti that Rudra can grant moksha.
Even without shruti proofs, it is easy to say that Shiva communicated to Arjuna his inability to grant moksha. Because we need to examine how the meditation on gods and their appearances are described in the mahAbhArata as follows:
1) We have devas like Indra, Shiva and Brahma appearing before various rishis and granting them boons. In most of the cases, a few adjectives are used to describe the prowess of the gods and then the boon seeker gets his boon and the god disappears, pleased with him. In the case of Shiva-Arjuna incident, the same happened. Shiva came, he blessed Arjuna with his astra and left. He informed Arjuna that he can grant anything besides moksha because Arjuna was a sAttvika who would later be an aspirant of moksha.
2) The case of vishNu is always different. Whenever any rishi meditates on vishNu for a material boon, and vishNu appears before him, the rishi goes into a raptorous description of vishNu's divine form, ornaments, his bewitching beauty. The boon seeker forgets the boon he wanted and simply remains content in the appearance of vishNu. Even when bhagavAn asks the boon seeker to spell out what is required, the boon seeker simply says, "I am content just by seeing you" and uses unambiguous adjectives which are distinctly upanishadic to describe him. There are three examples of this -
* The case of Dhruva who meditated on vishNu for a material boon, but forgot his request on seeing him and experiencing him.
* The case of Hanuman who said "bhAvo nAnyatra gacchati" - I reject even paramapada after seeing srI rAmA here.
* The third case, that of Utanka, occurs in the mahAbhArata. This rishi underwent a penance in which he sought a boon from vishNu to kill an asurA called DundhumAra. But when bhagavAn appeared before him, the rishi completely forgot what he wanted and eulogised bhagavAn with adjectives describing him as the parabrahman.
The incident of Utanka can be viewed here:
And note the following:
"It was thus, O Yudhishthira, that the high-souled Utanka praised the Lord of the senses. And Vishnu, therefore, said unto Utanka, 'I am gratified with thee. Ask thou the boon that thou desirest.' And Utanka said, 'This indeed hath, been a great boon to me, in that I have been able to behold Hari, that eternal Being, that divine Creator, that Lord of the universe!"
See what Utanka says? Even if the rishis initially had a mindset for a material boon, they forget it on seeing Hari, because bhagavAn himself is the highest puruSArtha. Whereas, in the case of other devas like Shiva, Brahma, or Indra such an incident never happens where the boon seeker actually forgets his boon and remains content with the mere presence of the deva. Neither are the adjectives used in praising the devas equal to the ones used in praise of vishNu.
Furthermore, Utanka was a sAttvika, like Arjuna, who meditated on vishNu for a boon other than moksha. However, vishNu does not make any statement such as "I can give you everything except moksha". Because, if Utanka wanted moksha, that would have been bestowed.
Therefore, the incident of Shiva saying "I can give anything other than moksha" to Arjuna was only a clarification that Arjuna, being a sAttvika, is deserving of even the highest puruShArtha according to Shiva, but the latter cannot give it.
ACCUSATION#12: He then quotes the sauptika parva to show Rudra can grant moksha:
“The holy one said, "Verily, Drona's son had sought the aid of that highest of all the gods, the eternal Mahadeva. It was for this that he succeeded in slaying, single-handed, so large a number of warriors. If Mahadeva be gratified, he can bestow even immortality. Girisha can give such valour as will succeed in checking Indra himself. I know Mahadeva truly, O bull of Bharata's race! I know also his various acts of old. He, O Bharata, is the beginning, the middle, and the end of all creatures. This entire universe acts and moves through his energy”.
ANSWER: Look at the context and you have the answer. It is to glorify Aswattama’s tapas that Krishna talks about the greatness of Shiva. And there, the translation is wrong. Here is our rough translation:
nūnaṃ sa deva denānām īśvareśvaram avyayam jagāma śaraṇaṃ drauṇir ekas tenāvadhīd bahūn
prasanno hi mahādevo dadyād amaratām api vīryaṃ ca giriśo dadyād yenendram api śātayet
vedāhaṃ hi mahādevaṃ tattvena bharatarṣabha yāni cāsya purāṇāni karmāṇi vividhāny uta
ādir eṣa hi bhūtānāṃ madhyam antaś ca bhārata viceṣṭate jagac cedaṃ sarvam asyaiva karmaṇā | (MBH 10:17:6-9)
Meaning: Drona’s son has sought the aid of the Lord of Devas (Shiva), who is the Isvareswara as he is the superior most to those having Aishwaryam of knowledge (of VishNu), who is unchanging (in yOga)……..If Mahadeva is pleased, he can even grant mOksha, meaning, the knowledge that leads to Moksha. I know the tattva (nArAyaNa) of mahAdeva and also his acts of old (like TripurAsura vadham, hala hala swallowing, etc accomplished by the aid of nArAyaNa). (That tattva) is certainly is the beginning, the middle, and the end of all creatures. This entire universe acts and moves through his will”.
Yes, this is a genuine part of mahAbhArata. Yes, Krishna praises Shiva. No, he does not praise Shiva as supreme.
Krishna says “if mahadeva is pleased, he can grant even moksha”. The “hi” shows that this is not a deity that is renowned to grant moksha, hence the fact that shiva can grant moksha is a cause for wonder. So how can shiva grant moksha?
He can grant the knowledge of vishNu that leads to moksha. What is the proof for this interpretation? “jnAnam iccet IshvarAt”.
And how can we be justified in interpreting it as such? Take the following - purAnAs also say “harEr nAma harEr nAma kevalam” – hari nAma leads to moksha. But the Brahma Sutras establish that it is either the practise of upAsaNa that leads to moksha. Contradiction is resolved by saying, “hari nAma leads to practice of upAsaNa by washing away karmas, which leads to moksha”. It is to highlight the exalted nature of hari nAma in being so crucial to wash away karmas that allow upAsaNa, which in turn gives moksha, that hari nAma is stated to give moksha itself.
Similarly, Shiva purifies a person by giving knowledge of vishNu, by which moksha is guaranteed. The act of giving knowledge assures one of moksha by cleansing sins and hence, it is as good as giving moksha. The very fact that he is called mahAdeva and isvara is because he acquired those names (sarvamedha yAga sloka and the bAnasura yuddha reference) in the context of his devotion to vishNu. The mahAbhArata itself uses the name “mahAdeva” in the context of Shiva performing the “sarvamedha yAga” to attain the position of being the chief of the devas. Note that “sarvamEdha” itself refers to “Intellect that is everywhere” which emphasizes the knowledge aspect of the yAga and proves he is a jivA. Likewise, he is called “iSvara” because he has knowledge of vishNu which is his wealth. vAlmiki refers to Shiva as “srimAn” or possessor of wealth that is knowledge of Hari in the rAmAyaNa. “iSvara uvAca – srI rAma rAma rAmEti...” also shows in what context he is iSvara. He is the iSvarEsvara as he excels rishis and other devas in knowledge.
Otherwise, we would have to interpret several statements in the shastra such as “lighting lamps, doing pooja leads to moksha” in texts like vishNu dharma thus leading to the absurd conclusion that any little act directly leads to moksha.
Secondly, “mahAdeva tattvEna” refers to nArAyaNa, who is the tattva or the reality of mahAdeva, ie, he is the antaryAmin of mahAdeva and thus, is responsible for those “old acts”. The very reference to those acts is a direct reference to his antaryAmin. The last line describes that tattva, the antaryAmin only. So, it is to say that mahAdeva’s boon to ashwattama is very great because his antaryAmin (nArAyaNa) has aided mahAdeva to perform wondrous acts in the past, such as tripurAsura vadham.
This word “tattva” echoes the upanishadic statement “nityO nityAnAm” and “satyasya satyam” – paramAtma is the reality of the many realities and the truth of the other truths as he is the inner self of the jivA, has the jivA as his body and makes them exist as well as empowers them. Mahabharata also says “nArAyaNatmaka” with respect to Rudra – spoken by krishNa himself.
Still not convinced that “tattva” refers to vishNu? We direct you to the sahasranAma which says “tattvam tattva vidEkAtma”. Here, it is mentioned “tattvam” is a name of vishNu.
And what is the meaning here? Bhattar gives the following meaning for “tattvam” nAma – “He who is the essence (sArAmSha) or principle of the Universe. Bhattar further adds - "dadhi dugdhayoriva dadhisAraH cit acitoH vyApti prayojanAbhyAm sArAmSaH tat-tvam" – Like butter which is the essence of milk and curd, bhagavAn, by His pervasion and usefulness in the sentient and non-sentient things, is the essence of all things. Butter gives texture, taste, the energy content, etc., to milk and curd. So also, bhagavAn is the essence of all things, by being the cause of their existence, the source of their sustenance etc.”
And this is the meaning of “mahAdeva tattvEna” – this tattvam (nArAyaNa) is the essence of Shiva, who by his pervasion, gives the attributes of mahAdevatvam, iSvaratvam and jnAnatva to Shiva.
Genuine parts of mahAbHArata, thus, do not allow for shaiva thoughts. We can explain this sloka in more detail and with more pramAnAs, but this will do for now.
ACCUSATION#13: The deceitful interpretation of the story of Vishnu’s beheading and calling Rudra as actually beheaded…..
ANSWER: We do not even need to address it since the opponent lacks a basic knowledge of Sanskrit and copies/pastes Griffith translations of brahmaNas. I think our readers would know who among us can actually do a traditional reading of texts. Apart from that, the story of Rudra’s beheading is seen in the Taittiriya Aranyaka. There are also upabR^ihmaNa-s of this episode in the sAttvika purANa-s.
ADDRESSING THE PURUSHOTTAMA CHALLENGE
ACCUSATION#14: Santosh tries to answer our “Purushottama challenge” in the home page of our blog, by quoting a few verses from Shaiva Purana and Mahabharata to show Shiva is called Purushottama.
ANSWER: It is clear that Santosh has not understood our challenge. His response is similar to his showing the word “jaleshayaH” when we challenged him to show where the word “nArAyaNa” (which can only be a proper name) is used to denote Shiva.
Regarding the issue of Rudra being mentioned as “Purushottama” in Shaiva and other tAmasa purANas,
One has to see why we mentioned “itihAsa/purANa” as well as “kAvya/nighaNTu” in the challenge. This is to cover the interpretations of both Sri Ramanuja (who interprets loke as smR^itau – vedārthāvalokanāt loka iti smṛtiḥ iha ucyate) as well Sri Shankara (who interprets loke as puruṣottama ity evaṃ māṃ bhakta-janā viduḥ | kavayaḥ kāvyādiṣu cedaṃ nāma nibadhnanti | puruṣottama ity anenābhidhānenābhigṛṇanti ). It is ridiculous to think that according to Sri Ramanuja, vedArthAvalokana is possible with tAmasa purANa-s!
Hence, by purAna/ithihAsa, we meant sAttvika purAnas and not tAmasa shAstrA like Rudra Samhita etc. It is foolish to suggest that tAmasa-purANa-s, that are contrary to the shruti are intended in the statement “itihAsapurANAbhyAM vedaH samupabR^ihmayet |”.
In any case, we asked for something in the Itihasa/Purana or the works of poets where Shiva is given the name Purushottama, not where the adjective/etymology of Purushottama is intended. The challenge, as posed in the main page of our blog, uses the following wording:
“But they stand exposed when they are asked to quote any itihAsa/purANastatement or kavi or kAvya or nighaNTu in history that assigns the name Purushottama to Siva. Their position is undermined even by Kalidasa, himself a devotee of Siva!!!
“I challenge our anti-Vaishnavite author of the “mahapashupatastra” blog page to refute logically this ONE observation.”
Hence, even the tAmasa purANa verses definitely do not help the cause of Santosh, given that even they do not address Shiva as “puruShottamAkhya” etc.
And irrespective of what the tAmasa purAnAs say, poets like kAlidasa never used the term to denote shiva showing that it was vishNu who was popularly accepted and known as puruShottama. Nor is there any nighaNTu (lexicon) worth its name mentioning Purushottama as Shiva’s name. Hence, the challenge remains insurmountable for Santosh, whether one considers Ramanuja or Shankara as the correct interpreter of Gita 15.18
Finally, the purANika verse can be interpreted in a general manner as well. However, it being a tAmasa purAna, it is not worth our notice.
Regarding the issue of Arjuna/Siva being mentioned as “Purushottama” in the Mahabharata itself, one can only wonder what inauthentic recension of Mahabharata Santosh is subscribing to! The recension of the verse where Arjuna is addressed as “Purushottama” is suspect. The version in both the BORI critical edition as well as the Kumbhakonam edition reads thus (the bolded words are rendered as ‘Purushottama’ in Santosh’s version):
03041005a prItimAn asmi vai pArtha tava satyaparAkrama
03041005c gRhANa varam asmattaH kAGkSitaM yan nararSabha
The above anomaly is only matched by the fact that the other two Mahabharata verses he quotes (from the third and thirteenth parvans, respectively) where Rudra is allegedly addressed as Purushottama are relegated to the appendix of the critical edition, with the remark that only one or two stray manuscripts contain them. This is in addition to the fact that again, the name Purushottama is never used in these verses, but only an etymological connection is suggested, which is of no use to answer our challenge.
Be that as it may, it does not harm us if “puruShottama” instead of “yan nararShabha” is the authentic recension in the verse quoted above where Rudra addresses Arjuna. Let us discuss why:
Our opponent further claims “puruShottama” is not a monopoly of vishNu since Arjuna is called that as well (assuming Santosh’s recension is correct). Quite true. For that matter, several kings are called “pundarika nayanam” in the mahAbhArata. But in those contexts, “puruShottama” means “best of men” and the lotus eyed refers to a praise of the handsomeness of the kings. By all means, you can call Shiva as the best of all living beings and handsome in appearance. Nothing wrong in that.
vishNu however, is puruShottama in the context krishNa elaborates in Gita – he is above kShara and akShara. That meaning and hence, the name in that context, applies to vishNu alone. Similarly, “pundarIkam evam akshini” in the chAndOgya Upanishad used in the context of parabrahman applies to vishNu only.
What we stressed was that nothing and no-one would dare to attribute these names in their context of brahma tattva to lesser deities like Shiva.
ACCUSATION#15: Yajur Veda calls Rudra as virAt puruSha
ANSWER: We have already addressed this in both the satapatha brahmaNa and sri rudram articles. Copying and pasting Griffith won’t help.
ACCUSATION#16: The Andhra Mahabharatam became a great weapon for them upon which they banked their faith when their fan and follower helped them with a Google books link as shown below.
ANSWER: Unable to interpret shAstra, he goes back to the old interpolations argument. Maybe you didn’t notice, but we merely replied to questions on Andhra Mahabharata by other readers and listened with interest when it corroborated our views. We never actually set great store in it in the original article, nor did we consider it the sole proof on which everything hinges.
FYI, we NEVER held the Andhra Mahabharatam as absolute proof. We communicated it. We only allowed Sri lakshminarayan to post his opinions and answered them since he was so insistent about the Andhra Mahabharatam. Throughout our posts, we maintained that it is only supplementary and has no consequence. We did not even quote it in the article.
We have already shown what methodology we used for the interpolations article.
If a reader brings it up and seriously discusses it, of course we will do so.
And then, he goes on a rant about Kshemendra, etc. No need to address these as they are done to death.
ADDENDUM: He refers to Aaryamaa’s “dark past” in various forums and dramatically reveals Aaryamaa (that is me) as a person by name of “Srinivasan Ramanujan”. Sorry to bust his bubble, but that is also not my name. It’s a pseudonym I use to hide my identity and I have registered in google and yahoo groups under that name. “Srinivasan” is my third name which is not even used at home and “Ramanujan” is to just give it a sri vaishnava flavour!
He also says we made a mistake by calling Kanchi “Paramacharya” (a no.1 vishNu dvEshi of his times) as bogus. Well, no mistakes there.
That concludes our response. We believe (and know for sure, by the grace of srI rAmAnuja) that it is fitting.
Excellent replies from Aryamaa and HBB which should effectively silence Santosh and co.
ReplyDeleteBut the barking from these Vishnu haters will go on...
In telugu we have a saying "Arichey kukka karavadhu", i.e. barking dogs don't bite. This saying perfectly fits Santosh and co. Let Vishnu hating dogs keep barking. No harm to the Lord.
Santosh and co are infact pseudo advaitins i.e. Shaktas in garb of Advaita. Though he may call himself Advaitin or shaivaite both of which he is not... Their aim is Vishnu dvesham alone and nothing else. This kind of pseudo advaitism is possible for a few handful people like Santosh only, who are bread on some stupid programs on TV channels, and translations by griffiths, jones ,muller etc.
People like Santosh should atleast know that he should have decorum and stop stooping down to personal taunts and insults, lest he will get back the same i.e. he too will stand insulted.
Rgds
Dear bloggers
ReplyDeleteI am writing this for the sake of neutral readers who might visit your blog. I disagree with you on many points but I agree that Sri Subbu and Sri Suresh are repetitive in their arguments. I have first hand experience of discussing with them in the science-religion-philosophy Google group. Sri Subbu is especially a vitanda vadin, and you can take my word for it. Even when presented with direct evidence, he does not accept things. His understanding of advaita is at best superficial. For instance, he argued that antaryAmi in advaita is nirguNa Brahman when it is clearly saguNa Brahman. (See for instance that Mandukya upanishad that explicitly says that antaryAmi is Ishwara and not turiya). Also I have quoted many names from Vishnu sahasranama bhashya, which Sankara interprets as the popular Vishnu only and yet he ignored all my arguments. Having a fair debate with such a person is impossible, as you too must have realized. Therefore, I completely sympathize with you if you have chosen not to publish his comments.
Dear bloggers
ReplyDeleteOnce again, for the sake of neutral readers, I am writing this -
I have read your article and I am surprised to find that Sri Santosh of mahapasupatastra blog has pulled my name into his attack on you. Just to set the record straight, I am neither a fan nor a follower of you. I only visit the narayanastra blog because I find your articles interesting and informative. I agree with some of your points and disagree with some. For example, I value (some of) indology, while you hold the opposite opinion. If you know Sri Santosh, please convey to him not to pull my name into this.
Dear Sri lakshminarayan,
DeleteThank you for the clarifications. We will do the needful. This is often the trick of these people - when they can't answer us directly, they pull in others unnecessarily. Santosh cannot argue with us on a scholarly level, so he ducks the issue by claiming we insulted xyz and thus are untrustworthy. Subbu cannot refute us directly, so he ignores our proofs and unnecessarily harps about how sri ramanuja and Sri Madhva have insulted sri Shankara (which is not even relevant to the topic in hand).
Glad to see some people recognise their tactics of desperation.
Dear bloggers
ReplyDeleteWhy do you call Kanchi paramacharya as a Vishnu dveshi? Can you throw some light on this? Thanks.
HBB will explain it to you briefly (watch this space for his reply) as he has read the bulk of the material and is eloquent on the subject. We might write an article exposing this "paramacharya" sometime later if we think we have enough information to do one.
DeleteI will reply in detail latest by Monday afternoon.
DeleteRegarding your question... About this late Peethadhipati, the less said the better. I will paraphrase verbatim and one can do a google search easily to get the links promptly.
DeleteAs for Vishnu-dveSha, he is quite unpopular among scholarly Srivaishnava circles for spreading random stories subtly mocking Vishnu and Vaishnavas, directly in his speeches which get published in popular cine-gossip magazines that reach a wide spectrum of masses, as well as indirectly through his disciples and bhaktas who write articles on "Deepavali special", "Pongal special" editions of these magazines.
For example, he even claimed that Vishnu exhibited tamoguNa by saying things like
// Vishnu, who is considered as symbolising Satvaguna, has, on occasions, taken upon Him self Tamoguna, standing for destruction, as His Avataar as Narasimhaa. In the Rama Avataara, when He fought Khara Dooshana, Kumbha Karna and Ravana, and also when he threatened to dry up the ocean, He assumed Tamoguna. //
while both the shAstras and ancient advaitins have denied this. When pointed out that he was wrong, patiently and in a civil manner by stalwarts like Sri Puthur Swami (with evidence from the Ramayana, Srimad Bhagavatam, Nrsimha Tapaniya Upanishad etc), the Peethadhipati chose to remain silent.
Some other examples:
// Through Visnu he sustains them and through Rudra he destroys them. Later Brahma, Visnu, Rudra are themselves destroyed by him. //
Note the careful use of "Rudra" here and not "Siva", thus subscribing to the Sadasiva-turIya-vAda (i.e., claiming that the popular "Siva" is different from "Rudra" and above the trinity of "Brahma, Vishnu, and Rudra") propounded by Appayya in his anti-Vishnu works and having no basis in the shAstra or Shankara's works.
(contd. in next comment)
(contd. from previous comment)
DeleteSee this one as well:
//
There were lanterns with glass on all the four sides- or three sides. Let us take the latter type.
...
We may take these three sides to represent creation, protection and dissolution, the three functions performed by the Paramatman. It is the one Light that is responsible for all the three, like the wick burning inside the lamp with the three sides.
...
One side of the lantern, let us assume, is painted red. It symbolises creation. If we remove red from the pure light of the spectrum, the other six colours also will be separated. This is what is meant by the one becoming the many of creation. Brahma, the Creator, is said to be red in colour. Another side of the lantern is painted blue. ...
Mahavisnu, during the very act of sustaining all creation, demonstrates through jnana that this world is not the whole self-fulfilling truth but the disguise of the Paramatman, his sport. In the fire of jnana the cosmos is charred.
...
it is like a lump of charcoal. Such a entity as the world still exists, but its own quality, Maya, is burned out and is suffused with Visnu-"Sarvam Vishnumayam jagat". In Tamil Visnu is called"Kariyan, Nilameniyan"(one who is like charcoal, one whose body is blue). Blue, black and violet are more or less similar colours. The light coming from the blue side of the lantern is Visnu.
...
The third side of the lamp is not painted. We saw that when all is burnt in jnana the residue is a lump of charcoal. But if this charcoal is burned further the ultimate product is ash. It has no form and is just powder or dust. White is the colour close to pure light. Now the Paramatman alone remains. That is the ashes remain when everything is burnt out- that is what lasts in the end. It is indeed Paramesvara otherwise called Mahabhasma. Samhara, destruction, may seem a cruel function. But what Siva does, though seemingly cruel, is truly an act of compassion because he goes beyond destruction to unite us with the Truth. When Visnu sportingly bestows jnana on us the cosmos seems like a lump of charcoal. "Sarvam Vishnumayam jagat, "we say. But now all the sport has ended and we have come to the state of supreme jnana: there is neither "sarvam"nor "jagat". Now it is all "Sivamayam". It is the one lamp that is the light of the Brahman. When it is seen through the red side of the lantern it becomes Brahma; through the blue side it is Visnu; and through the unpainted side it is Siva.
//
Too many to count here... 1) Implying Vishnu is impure and Shiva is pure by comparing with blue side and colorless side respectively, 2) Comparison of Vishnu's form with "a lump of charcoal", and that this charcoal is later burnt up, 3) Vishnu's "sportingly" bestowing jnAna and then "all the sport has now ended and it is only Sivamayam" and no more "Vishnumayam".
(contd. in next comment)
(contd. from previous comment)
DeleteAs for anti-Vaishnavism, his campaign against Srivaishnavism is all too well-known. See how he has denigrated Sri Ramanuja and Srivaishnavas in general by distorting the incident recorded in Guruparampara:
//
As the greatness of the Name of Siva has been mentioned in the middle of Bhagawatam, a highly respected Aazhvaar has also extolled the greatness of Siva. Though the story tellers of Purana-s known as Pouraniks, talk about this, as though berating Siva, to me it sounds differently.
Till the time of Ramanujacharya, almost all people were followers of both Siva and Vishnu. If there is a village or hamlet, on the West was the Vishnu Temple and on the North East was the Temple for Siva. Mostly in the morning people will go to the Vishnu temple and in the evening to the Siva temple. Even those who were purely Saivites or Vashnavites, never stooped down to decrying the other based on their beliefs, because while adoring their Ishta Devata, they did not believe in ridiculing other Devata-s! After the advent of Ramanujacharyar, things changed. He preached that Vishnu is the only God and that his followers should not go to the Siva Temples!
............
The Sozha (also known as Chola) King of that time called for a meeting of the Vidvat Sabha, for consultation and clarification.
............
At that time Koorathu Aazhvaar was with him. He told his Guru, “Swami, This King is a hardened devotee of Siva. We cannot believe that he will be fair in his dealings. You are preaching that real devotees of Vishnu should not go to temples of Siva at all. Having called you on the pretext of discussion, we never know as to what he will do! It is better that you put on whites like me and make yourself scarce. I will wear your ochre robes and go as Ramanujacharyar! Let us see what happens!”
............
The learned people there had discussed and come to this opinion. “It is alright to praise any God as equal or as good as Siva. But to bring in the idea of comparison and say one is too good and the other is lower or bad is not acceptable. If he still insists upon his point of view then, let him prove it by quoting the Saastraa-s. So, they wrote one sentence on the palm leaf saying, “sivaat parataram naasti”, meaning that there is nothing superior to Siva. If it is agreed, it should be signed. If you disagree, then you have to argue it out quoting evidence from the Saastraa-s. Koorathu Aazhvaar was shown the palm leaf. He did not sign it. He wrote, “asti dronam atha: param”, meaning, ‘Yes. There is Dronam above and so param!”
//
(contd. in next comment)
(contd. from previous comment)
Delete//
Those days the Sozha (also known as Chola) King was an ardent devotee of Siva. Ramanuja advocated exclusive devotion to Vishnu only. So the King assembled a Vidvat Sadas, an assembly of very learned exponents of Saastra-s, so as to analyze the basis of Ramanujacharya's point of view.
...
Looking at the Kings representatives, Koorathu Aazhvaar was much worried. He thought on the following lines. "The King is a confirmed devotee of Siva. Our Guru is of the opinion that only Vishnu is worthy of being prayed to and does not approve of Siva Aaraadanaa.
...
The Vidvat Sadas was held as planned. As expected, he lost the argument. But he was not punished to be killed but caused to become blind. He gladly accepted what would have befallen to his Guru. Ramanujacharyar came back to Tamil Nadu only after that King was dead and gone!
//
//
It was written in the palm leaf that, ‘there is nothing above Siva’. Koorathu Aazhvaar wrote, ‘Yes. There is dronam above Siva, so, that is param’. “asti dronam ata: param”. Now, what is this ‘dronam’? ...This Marakkal was also called Siva, in Sanskrit. The measure bigger than Siva was Padakku, known as Dronam in Sanskrit. So, above Siva was Dronam. That is what Koorathu Aazhvaar wrote. In the august company of the King, his office bearers and learned luminaries, this was a rather frivolous reply. Koorathu Aazhvaar was roundly criticized and suitably punished, as the story goes.
...
What I think about this is that, Koorathu Aazhvaar did not give a playful reply. He said something acceptable to the Veda-s and devotees of Siva. When he said, “asti dronam ata: param”, he further made a word play! Dronam has to be understood as the white flower, which is as small as a speck, called ‘Thumbai’ in Tamil. Amongst leaves Bilva is most favoured for offering to Siva, so is ‘Oomathai’, ‘Erukku’ and ‘Thumbai’!
//
And he claims elsewhere that Sri Ramanuja "invented" the Urdhvapundara mark based on some unnamed text he claims as "Vaishnava guruparampara", which flies in the face of evidence from the AzhvArs themselves and various Shruti/Smriti texts that even smArthas such as Vaidyanatha Dikshita (in Smriti-Mukta-kalApa) had accepted back in the 15th/16th century:
//
The practice of wearing 'nAmam' and in that, wearing with 'pAdham' and also with out it came in to vogue due to Vaishnava AchAryAs, who came later [*than Shankara*] is known from their guru parampara stories themselves, as retold by vaishnavAs. Later, when a separate religion and a sub sect were established based on Vishnu as the sole presiding deity, it became a necessity to give a new identity to the converts of this faith.
//
//
Similarly, 'gOpi chandhan' and 'chAndhu' were employed by mAdhwAs, when their new 'sampradhAyam' came into existence as a separate (social) group. For those, who didn't choose to follow any of these new faiths but continued to practice the original vEdic path as advocated by BhaghavadpAdhA, no new names such as vaishnavA or mAdhwA were given. The same old title, smArthAs, continued. Similarly, the practice - advocated by vEdAs from the very beginning and employed from generation to generation - of wearing vibhUthi (basma dhAranam) stayed back with smArthAs.//
//Before the establishment of vishistAdvaitam as a separate sampradhAyam by srI RamAnujar, even the vaidhIkAs who worshipped Vishnu with all devotion as their ishta dEvathA would have been smArthAs wearing only bhasmA. //
(contd. in next comment)
(contd. from previous comment)
Deleteand himself contradicted this elsewhere, but not without mocking the ancestors of the present-day advaita Vaishnavas as "spiritually immature":
//
Before the advent of srI RamAnujar and srI MadhwA, even among smArthAs, a set existed which considered Vishnu as their 'ishta dEvathA'.
There is a funny aspect to this (idhilE oru vEdikkai): There were people among smArthAs who didn't have the [*spiritual*] maturity to engage in panchAyathana pUjA with special upAsanA for their ishta dEvathA and without indulging in 'para dEvathA nindhA', as advocated by AchAryAl. That is, they considered only their favourite deity as the primordial Godhead though at the philosophical level they seemed to have accepted advaitA.
Among such people, even the hardcore/hyper (thIvira) Vaishnavaites remained as advaitins. How [*I*] got to know this is through a fact, hitherto unknown to you, which I'll share with you [*now*].
There are few, who hail from such an advaitic-vaishnava-paramparA, exist even today. They hold only me as their AchAryA. If [*you*] ask about their siddhAntham, [*they'll say that*] it is advaitA only. They won't wear the nAmam. They won't wear vibhUti either, as it is considered to be associated with Siva. Rejecting both the nAmam and vibhUti, they wear only the 'gOpi chandan'.
Wearing neither the 'vada kalai nAmam' nor the 'then kalai nAmam', there is a sect, referred to as "kItru nAmak kArargal" [*those wearing kItru nAmam*], which continues to be advaitins. However, these advaitins are hardcore (vIra) vaishnavaites, when compared to those who hail from srI Ramanuja sampradhAyam. Even in the present days, when the RamAnuja-vaishnavites visit Siva temples, these advaita-vaishnavites, who consider me as their AchAryA, never enter a Siva temple!
//
But from his speeches etc. we can gather one thing. Not even this late Kamakoti Peethadhipati subscribes to Subbu's view, but in fact accepts our position that "Vishnu", "vasudeva", "nArAyaNa" etc. in Shankara Bhashyas refer to Saguna Brahman only. See http://kirtimukha.com/surfings/Cogitation/SankaraNarayana.htm
Not that this Peethadhipati is a pramANika (as we saw with the "lantern" example) on whose utterances we would rest our proofs.
(end)
Much of what this peethadhipati says philosophically is gibberish, while what he quotes as history is shrewdly distorted. There are more places and incidents where he has denigrated vishNu.
DeleteHe was indeed the precursor of modern day viTanda vadins. "deivathin kural" is complete nonsense. Naturally, he is worshipped since most people like Santosh would gravitate towards personalities like these only.
Not to mention several instances of interference in Vaishnava temples and perversion of Divya-prabandham texts. Just search for "kamakoti" in these links and read:
Deletehttp://www.ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/feb96/0098.html
http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/jun2001/0103.html
http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/sep97/0054.html
Just as an addendum, note that only those portions pertaining to "kamakoti" in those links are worthy of interest. We do not claim to share all of the opinions of those lay sri vaishnavas there. Using words like "cult", for instance, is not advocated by us.
DeleteADDENDUM:
DeleteRegarding this comment by the erstwhile Kanchi mutt seer:
// Vishnu, who is considered as symbolising Satvaguna, has, on occasions, taken upon Him self Tamoguna, standing for destruction, as His Avataar as Narasimhaa. In the Rama Avataara, when He fought Khara Dooshana, Kumbha Karna and Ravana, and also when he threatened to dry up the ocean, He assumed Tamoguna. //
Please contrast with Adi Shankara's explanations in Vishnu Sahasranama Bhashya:
“jitakrodhaH” – jitaH krodho yena saH jitakrodhaH ; vedamaryAdAsthApanArthaM surArIn hanti , na tu kopavaSAditi
[jitakrodha means one who has conquered anger. He kills the enemies of devas for the purpose of establishing Vedic honour, not as a result of being led astray by anger].
“akrUraH” – avAptasamastakAmatvAt kAmABAvAdeva kopABAvaH ; tasmAtkrauryamasya nAstIti akrUraH
[He is eternally the one who has already achieved every one of his own desires. Since there is no desire (kAma), there is no anger (krodha). Because of that, he has no cruelty (krUratva) and hence he is called akrUraH].
Sri HBB
DeleteThis is Lakshminarayana. Thanks for your explanations.
We in Dwaita circles know about this Subbu well. This Subbu is no scholar but a close minded and an obdurate person. He got into a Tarkham with one of the Matathipathis of one of the smaller Madhwa Muttam. He became so illogical that he started quoting his own previous blogs as proof for his statements. Well, talk about circular logic!! I am attaching a link to the above discussion. You will understand what I mean.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sumadhwaseva.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Reply_to_Subrahmanian.pdf
About two years ago, out of the blue he wrote to me when I didn't even know who he was. This was in reply to one of my writing on the illogic of Adwaitham. He wrote that Sriman Madhwacharya also talks about Maaya. That is when I realized that he didn't even understand that the definition of Maaya in Dwaitham is in perfect consonance with what is used in Ithihaasas and Puranas while the definition of Maaya as defined by Adwaitham where in unreal and illusory things appear as real such a thing does not exist and, if it does, it exists only as an exception and, not as a rule. I also gave gave him the point that Adwaitham has two different definitions - very conveniently so, to prove there points. Sat Chit Na Badayeth, Asat Chit Na Pratiyeeth. We was unable to counter that.
The next point of discussion was on the many many polemical debates that took place between Sriman Vijayeendra Tirtha (Paramaguru of Sriman Raghavendra Tirtha) and Sri Appaya Dikshita. Well, these debates took place in the king's court in Tanjore and, in ALL the debates Sri Appaya Dikshita lost. We in the Madhwa Muttam have transcripts of these debates. Well, Subbu said, these took place so long ago and, we really don't know what happened. I said, well, how convenient. You Adwaitins remember that Shankara defeated Mandana Mishra, which took place even earlier but, cannot re-call that Sri Appaya Dikshita, supposedly Shankara himself re-born losing to a Dwaitin? Well, how convenient? He then said that in his blogs he is going to prove that Sriman Vijayeendra Tirtha was wrong. I didn't know if I should laugh at his ignorance or pity his ego. What Appaya Dikshita was unable to do, Subbu single handedly going to do. I told him that this is what Sriman Raghavendra Tirtha used to say about his Paramaguru Sriman Vijayeendra Tirtha - even just to know the names of the titles of the 104 works of Sriman Vijayeendra Tirtha and, what it is about as a synopsis, you have to be a very great scholar. So, I told Subbu that he can be a Don Quixote trying to prove Sriman Vijayeendra Tirtha wrong through his blogs. It has been two years since he took this challenge and, yet to make good on it. I also told him that he is just a copy and paste expert - Control C and Control V expert and, not a knowledgeable person in Vedantham. Just wanted to share with you folks.
Dear Shiva Prasad please don't speak without knowledge. I really wonder who made Appaya Deekshithar as an incarnation of Sri Shankaracharya!!. I have read all the replies of V.Subramaniam where he has made the Madhwa philosophy lose it's very base.
DeleteYou say "What Appaya Dikshita was unable to do, Subbu single handedly going to do." Let me tell when the same question Dvaitians, Buddhists, Jain scholars etc asked Sri Shankaracharya, he said it is his good fortune to have such people to show things are wrong.
Madhwa philosophy is really childish at few places. They even claim Sri Ramanuja's philsophy was defeated. I really find it more funny.
Sri Appaya Deekshithar never lost to Vijayendra Tirtha. We know what kind of documents you Madhwas have. Your entire Guru Parampare itself is lost in the history before Madhwa and the Nava Brindavana issue clearly says how things were falsified by the two Madhwa mutts.
Hari OM
Dear Anonymous,
DeleteThis is not a forum for bashing any particular sampradAya. Carry out your debates elsewhere.
Regarding Appayya Dikshita, we do not interfere in advaita vs dvaita debates, but if you are saying Appayya was undefeated in his Siva paratva views, you couldn't be more wrong. His views were critiqued and soundly refuted by both Vishishtadvaitins (Parakala Yati, Sholingur Mahacharya and Ranga Ramanuja Muni) as well as Dvaitins like Vijayendra Tirtha, etc (whose condemnation of sadA shiva tUrIya vAda is unassailable in terms of logic). Not just Vishishtadvaitins and Dvaitins, he has been condemned by other advaitins like Nrsimhasrama and Bodhendra Saraswati.
DeleteThat Appayya was under severe attack can be seen in his own works where he frequently contradicts himself - in one place, he says Sri Rama was suffering the effects of karma, while in another place, he negates it by saying Rama is verily Parabrahman. In one place, he says the Ganga from Shiva's hair is different from the one emerging from Trivikrama's foot - the former being "pure" Ganga and latter being "impure" (shows his hatred for Vishnu here) - but contradicts it elsewhere by saying Ganga on Shiva's head comes from Vishnu's feet.
He also contradicts himself philosophically - at times arguing for a "sadA shiva" above nArAyaNa by arguing that it is "nArAyaNAt param brahma" in the nArAyaNa sUkta, at times equating nArAyaNa to shiva and declaring nArAyaNa is Parabrahman, at times saying Uma and Vishnu are "shaktis" of Shiva, etc. This shows his utter inability to prove shiva paratva in any manner whatsover.
Like HBB said, this is not the place for Advaita vs Dvaita, so take it elsewhere. However, in terms of Shaiva maTha sthApana, there is no denying Appayya failed miserably. I might also cheekily add that dwelling on the nonsensical writings of Veershaiva (Subbu) as "proof" that Vijayendra was defeated is definitely a very weak straw to clutch!
An addendum to what he said - "Madhwa philosophy is really childish at few places. They even claim Sri Ramanuja's philsophy was defeated."
DeleteJust to clarify to our sri vaishnava readers, that has also been taken care of by the sri vaishnava acharyas.
No more on this advaita vs VA vs dvaita subject.
Dear Readers,
ReplyDeleteThe mahapashupatastra author has "replied" with some so-called objections to our counters. Let me address them patiently in this series of posts as follows:
ACCUSATION#1: They can take inspiration from any Shaiva article to build their work on top of it branding it as a “refutation”, but when the same was done by “Acharya Srikantha”, these humble-vaishnavas have branded him as a “thief”. What a double standard! It reminds me of a Bollywood song where a line goes something like – “...who kare to kehte hain ki raas-leela hai | main karun to saala character dheela hai |...” It fits this case perfectly.
ANSWER: Well, we find this very funny to say the list. It is clear that this mahApaSupatastra author knows nothing about the standards of refutation and what constitutes a copy. For this author, a very clear refutation is an “inspiration”. What he fails to note is that we took inspiration of the *name* of the article and not the *content* of the shaiva article. Only a thick headed person would not notice this. Consider the following:
1) Did the advaitin AnantakrishNa shAstri take “inspiration” from vishishtadvaita to refute the same when he named his work “shata bhUshaNi” to counter vedAnta desikan’s “shata dhUshaNi”? No. Only the name was an inspiration.
2) Did Appayya Dikshita take “inspiration” from mAdhva mata by naming his counter to dvaita as “mAdhva mata khaNdana?
3) Did we take “inspiration” from a shaiva article using absurd interpretations of the veda for the “Lord Rama - Heart of Rishi Svetasvatara” article? No, we used the mantras from skambha sUkta, svEtAsvatAra and interpreted them using the work of sri vedAnta desikan, which proves that these refer to srI rAma. Whereas, the shaiva tries to use “Griffith pramAnAs”.
I wonder what gives these people to write blogs when they don’t even know the basic meaning of a “refutation”.
ACCUSATION#2: Acharya Srikantha had built his Shiva-Vishishtadwaita philosophy on top of ‘bOdhAyana vritti’ and the resultant thesis was definitely same in principles as what was Ramanuja’s ‘Vaishnava- Vishishtadwaita’ philosophy because even Ramanuja’s work was built on top of ‘bodhAyana vritti’.
ANSWER: Now, he says based on this, we are practicing double standards by calling srikaNtha sivAchArya’s bhashya as a bogus copy of srI bhAshya with shaiva thoughts. Again, we reteirate the difference here:
1) If the author can get it into his thick head, our article is completely different and completely opposed to that shaiva article except for the name which was in jest of the latter. It is a standard refutation. We have not taken the absurd shaiva interpretations but used the right meanings of svetAsvatAra, skambha sUkta, etc as given by sri vaishnava acharyas.
2) BodhAyaNa vritti grantha is an establishment of vishishtadvaita-vaishnava philosophy which was elaborated by srI rAmAnuja. Whereas, srIkaNtha (or rather, appayya dikshita who was writing unscrupulously under the pseudonym of srIkaNtha) copies the entire maTha of rAmAnuja, actual statements directly from srI bhAshya and simply switches the name of vishNu to shiva. THAT is a copy and it was acknowledged by scholars during Appaya’s time itself.
3) Our article is a vaishnava-vishishtadvaita refutation of a shaiva-griffith article. SrikaNtha bhAshya is siva-vishishtadvaita which is a plagiarisation of vaishnava vishishtadvaita with no original content except substituting name of vishNu with shiva everywhere.
Completely clueless and he claims to run a blog.
Contd...
ACCUSATION#3: Even in serious disagreements people in all such elite and civilized forums are seen to begin their message as “Dear Sri -Ji” and close their message as “With Regards” (Or) “Warm Regards” etc., and only the “body” of the message contains disagreements. They do not call them with ‘pet names’ whatsoever be the level of frustration and disagreements.
ReplyDeleteANSWER: Purposely ignores our reference to the fact that the opponent referred to krishNa’s rAsa leela as immoral. Forget etiquette for such people, they are hardly opponents and deserve worse names than mere dropping of prefixes.
ACCUSATION#4: He says this regarding our interpolations article:
Who cares what a vaishnavite Acharya wrote in his works? Every non-vaishnavite Hindu knows that vaishnavite acharyas were always clever and cunning when dealing with “lord Shiva” related areas (of course I love their pure Vishnu/Lakshmi related works of devotion, like the devotional hymns of Vedanta Desika etc.). Not even in dreams a non-vaishnavite Hindu would ever trust their writings. So, this Acharya’s work is not a standard to judge Vyasa’s Mahabharata. Their argument can only look convincing to another Evidence dismissed outright as bogus! They should get some better reasoning to prove their point. Case closed!
ANSWER: Except that our opponent is clueless of the fact that all ancient vedAntins were vaishnavas. Let me define a “non-vaishnava hindu” for you : the traditions of shaiva, shakta and tantra in the past adopted the approach of considering the shaiva agamas as highest authority. If a particular portion of the veda contradicted their views, they would reject it or refrain from addressing it. Whereas, the vaishnava traditions of advaita, vishishtadvaita and dvaita were fully vedic – they considered only the veda as prime authority and rejected whatever clashed with the veda. Hence, srI rAmAnuja would not refrain from quoting sections supposedly praising shiva in the context of debate.
If you do not accept this, then you should label your blog in the spirit of true ancient shaiva siddhAntha – that your shaiva tendencies are not vedAntic, but shaiva, meaning you accept only those portions of the vedas which suit you (with distorted interpretations of course as the shaivas have). But if you want to be a vedAntin, you need to accept the vedAntic stance which involves accepting all the texts quoted by shankara, rAmAnuja and mAdhva and none of the texts not quoted by them which contradict the veda.
ACCUSATION#5: And again, he returns back to the interpolations issue since he cannot refute our interpretations as follows:
ReplyDeletea. Inserted a Question from Arjuna to Krishna when none of the Mahabharata versions have such a question from Arjuna to Krishna, b. Created a scene as if Krishna responded to Arjuna’s inquiry when the truth was Krishna just gave those details as an “additional” information while describing Rudra’s glories,c. They knew that Santi Parva incident comes later than Drona Parva one, but still tried to misguide their readers by saying “when Krishna had already told that to Arjuna elsewehere what was the need for Arjuna to ask Drona again?” As if nobody would notice their twisting of facts.
ANSWER: Again prattling on about the same thing is not going to help. mAdhva’s bhArata tAtparya nirnaya clearly shows that the satarudrIyam verses by vyAsa were not present during his time. No vedAntin or shaiva has quoted it in debate. Even shaiva commentaries on sri rudram by sayana and bhatta bhAskara do not quote those verses in support of their interpretations.Therefore, case closed here.
a. We did not insert questions, nor did we put any questions there.
b. The fact that krishNa identifies rudra as “krodhasambhava” is hardly a small thing and reiterates that rudra is a jivAtma. When he says “born of my wrath”, it means “born of the wrath of brahma (who is my body as I am his indweller)” perfectly matching “nArAyaNat brahma jAyatE, nArAyaNat rudrO jAyatE”.
c. No twisting of facts. By “again” we simply meant that the same situation should not occur twice. We did not intend chronology by “again”. One incident contains krishNa clearly telling Arjuna that rudra is krodha sambhava. Another incident in the drone parva again (note this is how we used “again”) has this incident, and a description of shaiva interpretation of satarudrIyam. Since the latter is proven an interpolation as it has not been quoted by anyone and contradicts the veda, we used “again” to denote its recent origin.
Enough of this. Do something more than actually trying to twist our statements by misreading harmless words. We have made it crystal clear that this section is an interpolation.
ACCUSATION#6: When their lies have been exposed, naturally, now they don’t have anything to cover their misdeeds… (blah, blah)…….they would see the misdeed of these authors) by saying (quoting narayanastra authors):
ReplyDelete“Furthermore, in that same chapter, Krishna tells Arjuna all the glories of Mahadeva – that he is the lord of devas, the husband of Uma, very great, but Krishna also adds – “He is born of my (Krishna’s) wrath”. So, all that greatness still makes Rudra a jivA and inferior to Krishna, to whom he owes that greatness. Seems like our shaiva friend failed to point out that just like we highlighted in the article how Shaivas skip those words!”
This is totally irrelevant and an off-topic altogether. The topic was not at all related to whether Krishna gave birth to Rudra or who between the two is superior. Therefore bringing the topic of Krishna saying from his wrath Rudra manifests and saying their ‘Shaiva friend’ (i.e, me) failed to point it out is totally irrelevant.
ANSWER: So, something which talks of rudra’s birth is irrelevant? O-ho. And he says we have double standards. The “manifestation” theory is debunked by krishNa himself who declares that both Brahma and Rudra are his agents who do these duties and that Rudra is “nArAyaNatmaka” – has nArAyaNa as his indweller (visnOr cAtma bhagavatO bhavaH). That rudra does not exist during pralaya is brought out by “eko ha vai nArAyaNa AsIt, na brahma, nEshana”. Hence, anything that has an indweller and not existent during pralaya is a jivAtma.
Let me explain the relevance. When two incidents involve asking the same question (who is this being) – one incident talks of rudra as born of krishNa’s wrath (ie, brahma, for whom krishNa is indweller) and the other talks of rudra as paramAtma and gives a distorted meaning of satarudrIyam in the name of vyAsa. The former is in accordance to the veda while the latter contradicts veda. The former is quoted by ancient vedAntins while the latter is not even quoted by shaivas. Hence, the latter incident is an interpolation.
That is the relevance. It is also noteworthy that a person who has the cheek to claim genuine sections of rAmAyaNa, the srimad bhAgavata as “fake” and who uses the bogus devi bhAgavata as a prop for his useless interpretations dares to accuse us and genuine vedAntins of twisting facts!
ACCUSATION#7: The case is crystal clear to everyone that Sri Rudram of Mahabharata (which is a Vyasa’s composition) is an authentic masterpiece from his pen and all sects of Hinduism accept that chapter as authentic. Even BORI’s critical edition of Mahabharata has not rejected that chapter. So, no more repeat arguments from my side also.
ANSWER: It is certainly a masterpiece – a masterpiece of a distortion which was interpolated sometime likely after that of nIlakaNtha. Even ancient shaiva commentaries on the Rudram do not reference it. You have no arguments, so no question of repetition. Loose ends are all tied up.
He uses BORI as evidence to prove that a section not quoted by ancient shaivas as well as vedAntins and which contradicts the vedas is true, but he says that srimad bhAgavatam and the rAmAyaNa sections of vishNu paratva quoted and commentated on by all vedAntins as well as opponents like appayya dikshita is fake. The irony!
ACCUSATION#8: He now has this to say regarding tAmasa purAnAs:
ReplyDeleteNobody outside of their tradition cares what Ramanuja considers as authentic and what as ridiculous.
ANSWER: As we have already shown, no vedAntin accepted the tAmasa purAnAs as wholly authentic. And anyone who professes to be a vedAntin considers whatever is quoted by srI rAmAnuja as authentic. Because if he had quoted something dubious in debate, accusations would have been made. Think we proved that.
ACCUSATION#9: Acharya Shankara who came much before Ramanuja had used references from Linga Purana etc., Shaiva Puranas in his Bhahsyas. That means for him all Puranas were worthy of acceptance. So, later on if Ramanuja or subsequent Acharyas have (out of malice) condemned Shaiva Puranas as Tamasik then it is clear that it was because of their insecurity towards Vishnu’s supremacy and other than that there was no other valid reason.
ANSWER: Er, you are not even aware that the same srI rAmAnuja quotes – Linga Purana, Skanda Purana and even some other tAmasa purAnAs? Check the verses Shankara quotes – he only quotes those verses from the tAmasa purAnAs that talk of general tattvas like Atman, prakrti etc. The same Shiva Purana has statements like “vishNu grants liberation and the devotees enjoy serving him in paramapada”.
The idea is that even tAmasa purAnAs have some sAttvic portions and are accepted. Shankara does not quote one line of the tAmasa purAnAs which talk about lingOdbhava or shiva paratva. He only quotes the general sAttvika portions which speak of tattvas. srI mAdhva also quotes those verses.
So he references Shankara as “Acharya” here. Fact is, Shankara was a vaishnava; so you can stop harbouring the illusion he was your acharya.
Read our article on “tAmasatva of purAnAs” again. We have mentioned this.
ACCUSATION#10: Even Mahabharata while talking about the greatness of that epic, says that for a devotee of Vishnu by reading the Mahabharata s/he gains the same merit what someone else gains by reading the “eighteen puranas”. It doesn’t talk about only (so called) satwika-puranas of Vishnu.
“aṣhṭādaśapurāṇānāṃ śravaṇādyatphalaṃ bhavet. Tatphalaṃ samavāpnoti vaiṣhṇavo nātra saṃśayaḥ |” (MBH 18:06:97 – Kumbhakonam edition)
“One devoted to Vishnu acquires (through this) that merit which is acquired by listening to the eighteen Puranas. There is no doubt in this”.
ANSWER: What is the harm in that? The sAttvika purAnAs impart knowledge of vishNu and lead to liberation. The tAmasa purAnAs are for a lesser class of people who have not cleansed themselves of karmas sufficiently; these purAnAs make them pray to lesser deities; these deities will then eventually elevate them to vishNu bhakti; then they too will get liberation. So, it is quite rational to say the tAmasa purAnAs DO confer merit – eventually.
It is like saying “jnAnan mokshO jAyatE” – knowledge leads to liberation. This only means knowledge leads to cleansing karmas, which leads to undertaking upAsana, which leads to liberation. Similarly, the tAmasa purAnAs is the lowest step to eventual liberation as they impart the merit of progessing to vishNu jnAna by the favour of lesser deities while the sAttvika purAnas give that merit immediately.
See, this is what blindly copying and pasting leads to - wrong knowledge which is tAmas.
ACCUSATION#11: Therefore it is crystal clear that these humble-authors are trying to escape from being seen as defeated and nothing else. Their change in their words where they now say “...we meant sAttwika purANa-s” is as like as challenging someone to show Vishnu or Shiva’s stories in Shakespeare’s novels. brought them to their senses out of their dreamy fairy land. Hence the change in words now!
ReplyDeleteANSWER: It is crystal clear that you know nothing about interpretations, interpolations or tattva vichara. Even so far in this article, not even one line is a traditional reading by you – just copy-paste from Griffith, Bori, Ganguly, Kumbhakonam edition and miscellaneous!
ACCUSATION#12: Earlier they had not even the slightest clue that Shiva Purana would address Shiva as ‘Purushottama’, hence owing to their over-confidence they generalized their challenge as “purana” without categorically narrowing down to Satwika-puranas only. Now this bolt from me has brought them to their senses out of their dreamy fairy land. Hence the change in words now!
ANSWER: Haha…we quoted srI rAmAnuja for that challenge and expected a vedAntic response. Did you think we were so dumb that we did not know the distortions of the tAmasa purAnAs? If a purAna has absurd stories of lingOdbhava it is natural to expect it would praise shiva as supreme. Your so-called “bolt” is just another whimper. You didn’t even know every vedAntin quotes general verses from the tAmasa purAnAs!
As we mentioned before, we took the statements of sri rAmAnuja (that all shAstra refers to vishNu as purushOttama) and shankara (that all kavi-s refer to him as purushOttama). Hence, nobody even considered tAmasa sections of shAstra that BOTH acharyas rejected.
Enough of this nonsense. He claims no-one has interest in our interpretations. Well, besides the fact it obviously is not true considering the readers who frequent the blog, he chooses to stick with Griffith and Ganguly for his translations of samhitAs, brahmaNas and ithihAsa – and then claims he has no interest. He can attempt a weak minded counter for the interpolations article, but even then, he cannot interpret a single thing without referencing Griffith!
Well, keep copying and pasting those idiotic translations. Sites like sacred texts keep blogs like mahapaSupatastra going, while traditional interpretations and scholarly analysis keep us in a position of strength.
-CONCLUDED-
ADDENDUM: Even in accusing us for that interpolations thing, he has not been honest. He claims we used the word "again" unscrupulously when we have said the following. Quoting ourselves:
ReplyDelete"If so, what was the need to ask Vyasa again, or Krishna, if you consider the latter the second time?"
In the flow of writing the sentence, we had simply said "or krishna, if you consider the latter the second time". The idea being is that if you take into account the interpolated section on vyasa and satarudriyam chronologically, it would be asking krishna that is the second time. However, if you consider that the Vyasa section is indeed an interpolation, the "again" can be applied in the sense that the interpolated section on vyasa's sata rudrIya upadesha is later in time. We had specified this already.
Just notice how he even distorts our statements to wring some form of half baked "objection" out of it. Enough of this nonsense from him. That section is interpolated simply because it clashes with the veda and is not quoted by ancient scholars. That, and it also disrupts the continuity of the parva as well as being philosophically absurd and untenable to a logical vedAntic explanation.
ADDENDUM 2: Just to clarify one thing here. Regarding this Kanchi "Paramacharya" character, our opponents seem to take glee in pointing out that the current jeeyar of Ahobila Mutt has praised him (of course, we shall not address the mindless ramblings of the other copy-paste expert and veerashaiva Subbu). To that, let us just say this - in modern times, few exist who knows the ins and outs of shAstra. Nowadays, maThAdhipathis are more preoccupied with being political and accomodating to people of all sects. If anyone knows the background of the current Ahobila Mutt Jeeyar, he has been associated with the Kamakoti Mutt in a professional capacity since his childhood and his praise of the Kamakoti mutt is motivated by his pUrvAshrama experiences and own non-indulgence in the past history of sri vaishnavas vs kamakoti shaivas. It is also a fact that must be acknowledged by all sri vaishnavas that the current mutt heads do not know about the debates this Kamakoti peethAdhipathi had with the likes of Sri PBA Swami and Sri Puttur Swami. So, showing a video of a sri vaishnava vidwan nowadays praising kamakoti heads does not mean it is endorsed by sri vaishnavas.
ReplyDeleteFor that matter, a sri vaishnava vidwan said on TV that Islam and Christianity are other "dharmas" besides sanAtana dharma. Obviously this is not true and is only for the sake of being secular on TV. So that puts paid to this nonsense.
Case of the blind leading the blind. A basic knowledge of tarka, vyAkaraNa, etc and some advaita does not make "paramacharya" a wise sage - its more due to sheep mentality than anything. The kamakoti mutt, as we all know, is already mired in issues far more grave than vishNu dvesha which they need to sort out before claiming any spiritual heritage. Let us not discuss it anymore on this blog.
Also, the present Ahobila mutt Jeeyar praising Kanchi Paramacharya doesn't amount to accepting Kanchi mutts views or Paramacharyas views. There are certain things or Aphorisms which are common among all philosophies like , always speak the truth etc. Everyone will support such things, but that doesn't mean that they subscribe to all the views.
ReplyDeleteFor e.g. Appaya Dikshita had praised Swami Vedantha Desikan many times. Even Appaya Diskshita went to extent of saying that the wall of protection provided by Swami Desikan's works made the Philosophy of Ramanujacharya impenetrable, even for Appaya dikshita himself. But, Appaya Dikshita didn't stop his desperate attempts against Vaishnavism and Lord Vishnu, inspite of all his failures.
Similarly, Swami Vedata Desikan was considered to be a friend of Vidyaranya, who headed the Sharada peetam. But, Swami Vedanta Desikan and Vidyaranya surely were philosophical opponents. This is even proved by the fact that Swami Desikan who adjudged a debate between Vidyarnaya (Advaita) and Akshobya muni (Dvaita), gave a vedict in favour of Akshobya muni, even though Vidyaranya was supposed to be a friend. Paying respects and praise is different, but accepting the views is all together a different proposition.