Guest guest Posted August 10, 1999 Report Share Posted August 10, 1999 First Union Capital Markets Corp. Dear Bhagavatas, I spent a while thinking about the topic, after reading some interesting posts. In my opinion, anyone who imparts some knowledge transfer is basically a guru or a teacher. On the other hand, an Acharya is usually a religious head, who specifically follows and teaches religion and its underlying philosophy and its nuances. Since this is a Sanskrit term, let us say, Vedanta. He may be skilled in other fields, but he relies on them only to get his central message across and does not teach them as part of the curriculum (Gurukulam!). In the good old days, I guess, the students in gurukula-vaasam, were given the basic training in many areas, with special emphasis on certain skills, based on the students' lineage. For instance, royal princes underwent training on all aspects of leadership - particularly military and statesmanship. In many cases the Guru also taught the basics of Vedas, Upanishads, etc. but probably left it to the Acharya, when it came to higher learning. Say he taught up to Elementary/Secondary level, and an Acharya took over at the Bachelor's ! In other words, when a guru specializes in religion and abides by it as his way of life, and is accepted as an authority by his followers, as opposed to just belonging to or merely following a particular faith, he becomes an Acharya. As we all know, we can find many references to the term Acharya in Taittriya Upanishad - especially, Seekshavalli. "......Acharya devo bhava... Adithi devo bhava .... " Regards, Sriram Ranganathan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 10, 1999 Report Share Posted August 10, 1999 Sri: Dear Sri Sriram, A good post! That reminds me of even our daily prayers saying, "asmadh GurubhyO Namah: asmadh ParamagurubhyO Namah: asmadh sarvagurubhyO Namah: Here we pay our obeisance to our AchAryAs addressing them as "Guru". Two paise worth. AchAryan ThiruvadigaLE SaraNam Regards Narayana Narayana Narayana dAsan > > Ranganathan, Sriram [sMTP:sriram.ranganathan] > Wednesday, August 11, 1999 3:29 AM > bhakti > Acharya & Guru > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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