other dieties: ref dileepan's article

[Guest guest]

It is sort of strange that dileepan mentioned that:

 

*On the contrary, I have heard in more than one upanyaasam

*that Siva must be respected as one of the aachaaryaas of sri

*vasihnava faith.

 

I read in rahasyatrasaram by vedanta desika and also one sreevaishnava

pundit's view, that sivan is left out of the acharya lineage of vaishnavas.

I would like to know whose upanyaasam is dileepan referring to.

 

One other view supports this view point: show me any sreevaishnava temple,

which is orthodox, which has a siva's idol just like the idols of other

acharyas and alwars along with the vishnu and his retinue. except in

some strange svayam vyakta kshetras and 108 kshetras : particularly

in badri and saligram (nepal) you can see other dieties right beside

vaishnava dieties. but in recent temples the orthodox ones do not have

any dieties other than the some bhaktas : such as hanuman, garuda, vishwaksena

etc.

One other support to this view is that in vaishnava acharya parampara we

pay respects to all the acharyas of vaishnavas but leave out siva! (this is the

list of acharya tanians : a remembrance of acharya parampara a devoted sree

vaishnava has to adhere to atleast twice a day)

in fact, in the smartha tradition siva is included (sometimes as the ultimate

diety or sometimes as a slightly subbordinate diety.) In fact shankaracharya

in his Gita bhasya, last verse of 6th chapter distinctly reserves the highest

place for the devotees who pray to vaasudeva as the ultimate God, as opposed

to those who pray to Rudras, Adityas etc. By the way, this view is a true

to the words of sri shankaracharyas' bhasya on Gita.

 

Nonetheless, even rahasyatrayasara and other sreevaishnava texts do state:

that all other dieties should be respected as elevated souls and hatred should

never be entertained since it is against the nature of a true bhagavatha.

everything belongs to the almighty narayana so nothing should be despised.

every other diety should be treated as the glory and (vibhuti) or roughly the

wealth of narayana.

 

strangely, even sort of contradicting vedanta desika's views, sreemad

bhagavatam states: vaishnavanam yatha sambhuhu: which regards siva as one

of the foremost vaishnavas!!. How come then, remembrance of siva or a verse

in devotion to siva (as an acharya . not as para devatha )is not included

in the sreevaishnava list of acharya

parampara??

 

May be the practice in sree vaishnavism sort of was over cautious to

avoid mistaken perception that some people may assume siva to be the

ultimate diety? (which is not acceptable to the vedic view or to the

alwars)

 

It is interesting to note that in SMS Chari's book "Vaishnavism" in the

introduction he has mentioned that "SAivism" is sort of independent of

the vedic origin. In fact a saivite guru named "Aghora shivaacharya" is

quoted to have stated that " the recent line of pundits have mistakenly

mixed up saivism, particularly because of their vedanta vaasana (or familiarity)

in fact, saivism is not vedic in origin and saivism has independent

origin.

 

Of course, there may be tons of other view points from other saivite scholars.

my request to dileepan and the prabandham folks was to know straight from the

alwars' works what their views were as opposed to recent scholars. Of course

the views of recent scholars would be helpful but should be dealt independently

from the views of alwars to retain their true view.

 

krishna