Fact or fiction

[Guest guest]

Dear learned members of the Bhakti group,

Let me say at the outset- this article should be viewed in the sincerity

 

of it's conception & should not be mistaken as an insult or offence,nor

should it be considered as any blatant demonstration of whatever little

knowledge I have.

I was sending this message, when fire alarms rang in our place, things

devoloped into a sort of crisis& for a few hrs,. we felt like being in

Montana or Montreal. We are back now.Sorry for the inconvenience caused

to all our members.

Now,'fact or fiction' seems like opening 'Pandora's box'. Ramayana&

Mahabharatha are epics & classics unparelleled at any time. Oxford

dictionary defines epic- as a long poem telling the story of the deeds

of one or more great heroes, usually over a period of long time. L et

us keep aside 'godliness& spirituality ' & view them as epics.They meet

the 'epic doctrine' to their fullest. Now let us add the doses of

'godliness to both.A book named 'geethai peAr uraigall' says

'ArjunanukkAgha arulappatathuthAn Geethai endra

pizhaipatta karuthill naam irukka vEndAm.Nammudaiya manathill undaagum

pOr

kalame kurushetram-kalangi nirkum naamellorum arjunandaan.nammai meetka

nirpavanE Kannan.Arjunanukku SAradhiyaay irundu eppadi BAAradadhai

nadathinano adhe maadhiri nammudaiya vaazhkai thEriyum nadathi koduppan-

 

naamum arjunani pOll saran pugundaal'.-idhuvE GEETHAI sollum paadam- the

book

says so.

Similarly Kamban has surmised Ramayana in saying 'rAma endra

irandezhuthinAl'. Is it enough if they said just this & nothing more.We

need metaphors,similies& all the jargons of language.Poetic freedom &

Poetic justice are two tenets of all poetry.Poetic freedom permits him

to fly on the wings of Pegasus to flights of fantasy & with poetic

justice he has to justify in glorifying the hero.Poetic freedom allows

the bard to portray 'raavana' as ten headed because the message driven

home is that

the evil in him is ten times or so many times high as in any other evil

charecter& poetic justice empahsises how Rama defeated him & how He was

prepared to even forgive him & other facets of divinity.Similarly

'mahaa'baratms 'maha' descriptions are fruits of freedom & Lord Krishna

as being in the midst of all this 'pot-pouri' enabling good to triumph

over evil is the epic's justice.Let us bring Alwars also into the

picture- all the works of Alwars are classified as Bhakti Literature.So

each of them is essentially a poet.But like other poets the Alwars never

sit in one cosy corner penning down tons of poetry. They have endured

hardships to partake the grandeur of the Lord in His Archaa roopam.I beg

to differ with-surreal imagination also.'Neela mEni iyyo nirai kondadhen

nenjinnaiye' is felt &is true when we worship Lord Ranganada.When we go

to the Divya Desams we have the tangible proof of all that the Alwars

sang & we live in the joy of the moment, just as the ALwars did long ago

& we need not indulge in surreal imagination- for the ecstacy of the

moment is true.When all other literature of the world are savoured

purely on it's literary merit, for they speak of the perishable things,

our Puraanas, epic&ithihaasas are held high for addressing the eternal

truth,ofcourse with the flavour of poetic imagination.

'Variety is the spice of life'-imagine, if we were given the same type

of food,same type of dress- we would despise life itself.So is with

puraanas etc,-they would be unappealing,if doled out like sermons.We are

confounded with too many a choice& to justify our choice we throw the

shroud of doubt on the rejections we've made.

May I be permitted to quote Swami Chinmayananda-"People ask

me-"Swamiji,why is Hinduism dwindling today" To this he said-'who told

you Hinduism is dwindling.-it does'nt rise or sink-the very fact that it

has stood the test of time is proof enough.It does not depend on any

body for it's survival.-maybe it's followers may increase or decrease in

no,. from time to time.So we needn't be scared, if Hinduism will prolong

or perish in it's inefficiency to face such questions -is Nagusha true

or false.

The Supreme Being,Truth -our 'kula dhanam' is gifted to us embedded in

the jewelbox of Puraanas, epics,prapandams,etc, with the lusturous gift

wrapping of tales like Nagusha,chamanthakamani,so on & so forth.There

are some smart people who unwrap gifts with least damage to the wrapper&

have them as keepsake. But if they are lost in the uniqueness of the

wrapper they are missing out on the gift- which is none other than the

LordHimself adorned in the many splendoured( attire)- box of Puraanas,

epics&other scriptures.

Thanks for reading this posting of epic proportion& I'm sorry it came

out in instalments.

"NArAyananE namakke parai tharuvaan"

With highest regards,

Subadra.

[Guest guest]

A couple of years ago, I read in The Hindu (paper) that Dwarakai was located

under sea in Gujarat state in India.

 

Also, Saraswathi river, one of the rivers in

Threeveni was in existence. I read an article on "The Hinduism" by an American

author (don't remember the name) wrote about a new theory on Aryan Invasion to

India contradicting to the existing theory.

 

Dr. Siddartha, Director general of

the Hyderabad, A.P, based B.M. Birla Science center said that Rigveda and

related Vedic literature contained accurate and sophisticated calendric

astronomy pointing to a well settled agrarian and scholastic population,

according to studies in 1993.

 

The book on "SandhyAvandanam" published by Sri. Thillaisthanam Swamy Kainkarya

Sabha, Bangalore discusses a scientific study of performing Sandhyavandanam and

the benefits.

 

Dasan.

Govindarajan.

[Guest guest]

Bhagawatas,

 

Sorry for dwelling too long on the "Fact or Fiction" thread, but here

is an URL that I accidentally stumbled upon that very much

corroborates Sri Govidarajan's view. I urge those interested to read

this well-written article.

 

http://www.itihaas.com/ancient/contrib1.html

 

The article refutes the Max-Mullerian theory of the Aryan Invasion by

quoting from rgvedic scriptural passages, and goes on to prove (claim,

or any other appropriate word) that the Aryas were indigenous to the

Indian sub-continent. (Hey, the author of this article is entitled to

his opinion just as we are to ours.)

 

Anyway, for purposes of the "fact or fiction" conversation, this is an

excerpt from the article of the section entitled "Discovery of the

Submerged city of Krishna's Dwaraka."

 

"The discovery of this city is very significant and a kind of

clinching evidence in discarding the Aryan invasion as well as its

proposed date of 1500 BC. Its discovery not only establishes the

authenticity of Mahabharat war and the main events described in the

epic, but clinches the traditional antiquity of Mahabharat and

Ramayana periods. So far the AIT (Aryan Invasion Theory) advocates

used to either dismiss the Mahabharat epic as a fictional work of a

highly talented poet or if not fictional would place it around 1000

BC. But the remains of this submerged city along the coast of Gujarat

were dated 3000BC to 1500BC. In Mahabharat's Musal Parva, the Dwarka

is mentioned as being gradually swallowed by the ocean. Krishna had

forewarned the residents of Dwaraka to vacate the city before the sea

submerged it. The Sabha Parva gives a detailed account of Krishna's

flight from Mathura with his followers to Dwaraka to escape continuous

attacks of Jarasandh's on Mathura and save the lives of its subjects.

For this reason, Krishna is also known as rnzo@ (ranchhor: one who

runs away from the battle-field). Dr. S. R. Rao and his team in 1984 -

88 (Marine Archaeology Unit) undertook an extensive search of this

city along the coast of Gujarat where the Dwarikadeesh temple stands

now, and finally they succeeded in unearthing the ruins of this

submerged city off the Gujarat coast."

 

Adiyen

Murali Kadambi

 

 

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trg[sMTP:trg]

Thursday, January 22, 1998 7:23 AM

bhakti

Re: Fact or Fiction

 

A couple of years ago, I read in The Hindu (paper) that Dwarakai was

located

under sea in Gujarat state in India.

 

Also, Saraswathi river, one of the rivers in

Threeveni was in existence. I read an article on "The Hinduism" by an

American

author (don't remember the name) wrote about a new theory on Aryan

Invasion to

India contradicting to the existing theory.

 

Dr. Siddartha, Director general of

the Hyderabad, A.P, based B.M. Birla Science center said that Rigveda

and

related Vedic literature contained accurate and sophisticated

calendric

astronomy pointing to a well settled agrarian and scholastic

population,

according to studies in 1993.

 

The book on "SandhyAvandanam" published by Sri. Thillaisthanam Swamy

Kainkarya

Sabha, Bangalore discusses a scientific study of performing

Sandhyavandanam and

the benefits.

 

Dasan.

Govindarajan.