thiruppaanazhwaar

[Guest guest]

I think dileepan's posting was excellent. There is a book called " the lives

of Alwars" (I am not exactly sure of the title). This is in english by

Alkondavilli acharya (Ananthachar indological institute). Even though the

author has unnecessarily compared christianism vs. alwar's bhakti, he has done a

good job for the benefit of people who are not fluent in tamil language,(like

me).

 

Every time I hear of the tales of our alwars it fills my eyes with tears. I

wonder what went wrong and why I can't have even a minute fraction of bhakti

what those alwars had. When my mind is disgusted, I stop looking at myself in a

mirror (a protective mechanism I guess).

 

Anyway, a social point of view. Eventhough it is true that discrimination is

utterly wrong, there are some truths regarding how one should deal with the

caste

issue. This is given in rahasyatraya sara, in I think prabhava raksha adhikaara

and a complementary chapter. There Sri vedanta desika goes into details of how

one should deal with caste issues. what is true about it and what is erroneous.

Then he explains birth based caste system and guna (or nature) based caste

system. There are two types of castes - ie. birth based and guna based. One

should be of a higher caste essentially in the guna based caste system. In that

sense all alwars are bramhins (in the guna based caste system!). Bramha anati

iti braamhanaha. One who goes or reaches bramhan is bramhana (irrespective of

birth). But there is some special significance to birth based caste system! I

did not agree with this for a long time. Since Vedanta desika writes about

this, I am learning to agree with this.

 

Krishna