Guru paramparai-3

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Sri Parthasarathi thunai

Srimathe Ramanujaya Namaha

 

Pranams,

 

The various schools of philosophy are broadly

classified into Astika(believes in the existence of

god) and Nastika(doesnot believe in the existence of

god) schools. The charvaka, Jainism and Buddism are

some schools which advocate Nastikam whereas Sankhya,

yoga, Nyaya, Vaishesika, Mimamsa and Vedantic schools

advocate Astikam. Among the Vedantic schools which

accept the Vedas as the mukya pramana there are three

major categories, Advaita school propogated by Sri

Adi Shankara, Vishistadvaita propagated by our

Aacharya Sri Ramanuja and the Dvaita school propagated

by Madvacharya.

 

Sri Manavala Mamunigal in his Arthi Prabhandam says

how Sri Ramanuja refuted all the other schools and

established our Vishistadvaita madham. He says as

follows:

 

“Chaaruvaaga madam neerusaidu Samana chedikkanal

koluthiye

Sakkiya kadalai vattruviththu migu Sankiya kiri

murindida

Maarusaididukanaadhavaadiyargal

vaaitagartharamiguthumel

Vandha Paasupadhar chindiyodum vagai vaadhuseidha

Ethirasanar

Koorumaa guru madathodoongiya

kumaralinmadamavattrinmel

Kodiya tarkkacharam vittapin

kurugimaayavaadhiyaraivendrida

Meerivaadilvarum Bhaskaranmada vilakkadik kodi

yerindupoi

Mikka yaadhava madaththaimaaytha peruveerar naalummiga

vaazhiye”(29)

 

Here Sri Mamunigal shows how Sri Ethirajar had debate

with the various schools like chaaruvaaga,

samana(jains), Sakkiya , sankiya,

Paasupadhar(Saivaites), Maayavaadham(advaitam),

Bhaskara mata and the Yaadhava mata and how he came

out victorious. Our mangalasaasanams to that great

aacharya who came out victorious in his debate with

the above schools of philosophy.

 

Jainism and Buddhism took birth only in India though

they have been almost washed out of India now. At one

stage only these religions were prevelant among the

masses and people have almost forgotten about the

Vedas and the vedic arthas. The Buddhist monks

started propagating soonya vaadha among the people.

They said that the world was formed from poojya and

will ultimately end in poojya too. At this time

people considered everything, the jivas and the

Bhagavan to be unreal. Then came Sri Adi shankara

who had the great responsibility to restore Vedic

knowledge in the society. He as a single person had

to change the minds of the people and make them

believe that god was real and ultimate as shown by the

Vedas. At that time it was really difficult for him

to totally change the minds of the people from atheism

to theism. So he had to accept their views and also

slowly bring them to his views. So he said that he

accepted that the world was unreal but strongly

enforced that the parabrahma was real and the Vedas

have to be followed. So people slowly changed from

atheism to vedantic advaita matam. We see in many

lectures today the lecturers talking according to the

crowd. Though the person may be well versed in many

subjects he cannot talk everything at a time or talk

something which is not applicable or understandable by

the present crowd. Similarly Shankaracharya’s main

role was to convert the atheist people into theist.

He proved the existence of the parabrahmam and people

started believing the Vedas. When this has been done

then came our great Aacharya Sri Ramanuja who removed

the errors of the shankara school of philosophy and

also established the tattvatraya concepts. He proved

that chit, achit and Ishvaran all were real . Our

human civilization from the early ages have seen a

number of evolutions. Similarly in philosophy also

there has been number of evolutions. Shankara paved

path for the first evolution and then came Sri

Ramanuja to give the actual Vishistadvaita philosophy.

If initially Sri shankara talked about both brahma

and the jivas to be real no one would have accepted

it since those people didn’t even believe the Vedas.

So he brought a change of mind in the people then it

became easy for Sri Ramanuja to establish his

siddhantam. It is not so easy to change the long

beliefs of people. It can occur only stage by stage.

So in my opinion Sri Shankacharya was not wrong but

I will never support the advaitins today after Sri

Ramanuja has refuted the misinterpretations in the

Shankara bhasyam and has given the correct siddantham.

 

Both Shankara and Ramanuja accepted sriman Narayana

has the Parabrahman and had no doubt in it.

Shankaracharya was also a great scholar whose bhasyams

were taken as reference by Sri Ramanuja too. Acharya

Ramanuja only made the necessary changes whereever

essential to the Shankara Bhasyam and hence

SriBhashyam is flawless. So we should have the due

respect to Shankaracharya too though we are sure to

get attached only to our great acharya, Sri Ramanuja.

So from the next postings we will continue seeing

about our guru paramparai and about the works of our

acharyas.

 

Adiyen Ramanuja Dasyai

Sumithra Varadarajan

 

 

 

 

 

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