visishtadvaita philosophy

[Guest guest]

sir,

 

friends,

 

Firstly all the three philosophies were written at different

times,the oldest being advita by adi shankara,as per him paramatma ie

parabrahmam consists of all gods and every one can worship the god of

their belief.the jeevatma is also part of the same parabrahma and can

be realised by any individual who can make an attempt at it.the

jeevatma becomes part of paramatma ones it realises it.the

jeevanmuktas come under this

 

SRI RAMANUJAR WHO ESTABLISHED the vishistadvaita as an alternate to

Advaita,because he did not accept jivatma being real and only

paramatma was real,and named it as vishnu(narayana). This is totally

wrong because,as per advaita the PARAMATMA is PARABRAHMAM.did he

object to the worship of anya devatas namely shiva and

brahma?.othervise he would have spelt it out clearly.Even adishankara

who re-established advaita,knew that parabrahmam is also narayana,as

can be seen in his compositions like Baja govindam and

govindahtakam.Right from the begining advaita philosophers were not

against worship of vishnu, and considered anya devatas as part of

parabrahmam.whereas the followers of ramanuja say that anyadevata

worship is against the basic principle of visishtadvaita.I don't

think this may be correct.A great philosopher like Sri ramanujar

would not have said this.Can any one say why the iyengars in tamilnad

do not visit shiva temples.(i mean staunch visishtadvaitins)or why

there are no iyergars in kerala brahmins.

 

 

cdr bvn

[Guest guest]

Sun, 12 Jan 2003 15:24:59 -0800 (PST)

"Narasimhan Krishnamachari" <champakam | This is

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Re: visishtadvaita philosophy

"sadagopaniyengar" <sadagopaniyengar, "b vaidya

nathan" <vaidyanathiyer

CC: kpnarasimhan

 

 

 

 

I had tried to stress the same point to SrI Vaidyanathan, without

much success. There are vedic quotes that advaitins use to bring out

their philosophy, and so also the dvaitins and the viSishTAdvaitins

have vedic declarations to support their positions. A public forum

like this is not the place where one can get into arguments trying to

establish the validity of one system or the other, partly because we

are not "inventing" new grounds here. Our AcArya-s have analyzed

these points in thorough depth over 800 years back. The best

starting position for all of us is to accept a position, and live by

it, based on our elders' instructions and our AcAryas' guidance. If

we want to learn about a different faith, we should be sincere in

trying to learn the other sampradAyam, and not approach the "learning

process" by questioning the basics of the sampradAyam. We don't need

to accept the other sampradAyam, but we should be sincere in our

desire to learn. There is a book titled "sarvArtha siddhi of SrI

ve'nkaTanAtha" by SrI v.n. SeshAdri AcArya, which I think is availble

from the ahobila maTham USA. This is a very easily readable book,

and gives very clear exposition of the differences between the

advaita and the viSishTAdvaita philosophies. The liks of rAmAnuja

and deSika spent a lot of their time thoroughly mastering advaita

before commenting on it and rejecting it. They did not postulate

their own positions first, and then kept arguing only for their

positions. Instead, they stated the advaita position, they quoted

the words of Sa'nkara, and then gave reasons why they do not agree

with this position - based on vedic pramANa-s, and then gave their

positions - based on vedic pramANa-s. We should not make light of

these great AcArya-s by just writing at our level what we feel and

what we think. I personally respect Sa'nkara for his contributions

in resisting the spread of buddhism etc, at his time, but, based on

our AcArya-s, I also accept the position declared by our AcArya-s

based on their deep analysis of all the different faiths.

 

-Krishnamachari

 

sadagopaniyengar <sadagopaniyengar wrote:

 

dear shri vaidyanathan, i do not use my id anymore and saw your

mail

only today. here is my reply.

in the Vibhuti Yogam of Bhagavat Gita, the Lord says that he is the

best of

all creatures in each class. thus he says he is the peepal tree among

trees

and the whale among fishes. similarly, he says that he is shankara

among the

rudras. by this token, if you were to equate Him with shankara, you

would

have to equate Him with the peepal tree and the whale too.

Sri Rama's worshipping the lingam at Rameswaram lacks authenticity

because

of its non-mention in Srimad Valmiki Ramayanam, which is acknowledged

to be

the only authentic account of Sri Rama's life.

as to the nayanmars' views, they are shaivites and cannot be expected

to say

anything else. if you examine impartial accounts like the Vedas,

Satvika

Puranas, the Bhagavat Gita, etc., and even ancient Tamil literature

of the

Sangam age, you will find Sriman Narayana being extolled as the

Parabrahmam.

whether we are an iyer or an iyengar, we would do well to stick to

the way

our forefathers have travelled, rather than strike out independently

for an

egalitarian approach in matters of spirituality.

the correct approach should be to identify and build on points of

agreement,

while staying faithful to one's own tradition. nothing prevents us

being

friends and share divine experiences, while being steadfast in our own

faiths.

thanks and regards, sadagopan

 

 

 

 

 

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