Sapthagiri Magazine

[Guest guest]

Sri Parthasarathi thunai

Srimathe Ramanujaya Namaha

 

Pranams,

In the website www.tirumala.org now the sapthagiri magazine's online

version is seen. Adiyen happened to go through an article about the

History of Tirupati in the April 2002 and the May 2002 issues. Some

of the informations in this article really put me to shock. I would

like to put forward some of the sentences of the author to the

members of the group. May the learned members of the group please

comment on the same.

1. "It is worth pointing out here that neither Sri Alavandar,

tirumali nambi,Sri Ramanuja nor his cousin and disciple Embar

contributed a taniyan for the thiruvaymoli nor was a commentary

written by any one of the above. These acharyas were not perhaps

great tamil scholars for one thing. IT IS EVEN DOUBTFUL IF SRI

RAMANUJA STUDIED CLOSELY ALL THE VERSES OF THE THIRUVAYMOLI. The

thiruvoymoli alone came to be well known as the standard form of

devotional literature,..........The works of other alvars were

obviously not known, or less known and could not have been classed as

philosophical, but only devotional...............Nammazhvar's

tiruvoymoli makes no reference to and does not attempt to refute the

Advaita philosophy".

2. "The natural inference is that a section of the srivaishnavas felt

that thirukurukai-piran pillan's commentary though it had the

approval of Sri Ramanuja and was considered the standard one, did not

dp full justice to Nammazhvar's Tiruvaymoli, or that it was not

illuminative".(The author here shows his view that pillan's

commentary was accepted by the vadagalais and the tengalai acharyas

from nanjiyar and others did not accept that and hence made other

commentaries)

3. "Ramanuja has not quoted a single tamil verse from thiruvaimozhi

as authority..............So it could not with justification or in

fairness be said that his philosophy was to any extent inspired by

the teachings of the thiruvaimozhi".

 

May 2002

1. "The tanians prefixed to the other three works of Sri Nammazhvar

and to the other works of the prabhandam show that these works were

discovered by later acharyas."

2. "One Tiruvaimozhi pillai alias tirumalai alvan born in 1325 A.d

wrote a commentary on periya alvar's Tirumoli. He is the son of

Pillai Lokacharya."

3. "Whether the thiruvaimozhi was seriously studied before the

appearance of the commentary by pillan and whether the other twenty

three works which make up the prabhandam were known to and were

studied by Sri Ramanuja are matters open to doubt"

4. " pillan does not say anywhere therein that he executed the work

in obedience to Sri Ramanuja's command and that it had the seal of

his approval".

 

The author has in many places contradicted his own statements but

then there are many things the author has said which will shock all

of us. Adiyen would like the learned members to go through the

article and throw light on the authority of the author's words.

 

Adiyen Ramanuja Dasyai

Sumithra Varadarajan

[Guest guest]

srImathE rAmAnujAya namaha

srImadh varavara munayE namaha

 

Dear Members,

 

On this subject, I request you all who are in India, to contact your

respective acharyas and send a strong criticism to the TTD publications on

this, as invited by Sri Mukundan.

 

Let that be a parallel action, but I will try to prove that the person who

has written this (I have not seen the site and I don't know who has written

this. Whoever it is....) has no knowledge of our sampradhAyam and the

history associated with it and just he has written for name and fame only.

 

=====Quote 1======================

1. "It is worth pointing out here that neither Sri Alavandar,

tirumali nambi,Sri Ramanuja nor his cousin and disciple Embar

contributed a taniyan for the thiruvaymoli nor was a commentary

written by any one of the above. These acharyas were not perhaps

great tamil scholars for one thing. IT IS EVEN DOUBTFUL IF SRI

RAMANUJA STUDIED CLOSELY ALL THE VERSES OF THE THIRUVAYMOLI. The

thiruvoymoli alone came to be well known as the standard form of

devotional literature,..........The works of other alvars were

obviously not known, or less known and could not have been classed as

philosophical, but only devotional...............Nammazhvar's

tiruvoymoli makes no reference to and does not attempt to refute the

Advaita philosophy".

======End Quote 1==================

In order to refute this statement clearly, one has to understand the social

set up in Tamil Nadu at the time when these AchAryAs are said to have lived

and graced us. You have to consider Sri Adhi Sankarar also for

understanding this. It was the time when the whole vedic religion was in

descendence and the anti-vedic religion like Buddhism and Jainism was in

the ascendence. It was the time when Sri Adhi Sankarar was born and revived

the vedic religion, through his philosophy based on the prasthAna thrayam.

Remember, it was a very very difficult job for Sri Adhi Sankarar to do

this. Yes, all the kings were supporting either Buddhism or Jainism and

there were no takers for the Vedic religion. So Sri Adhi Sankarar had to

fight a lot to bring into the fore the vedic religion. He did succeed in it

by god's grace, but some of his interpretations were not consistent with

the brahma sUtrAs. Nevertheless, it was accepted by the vedic religion

followers and was in vogue unfortunately. This philosophy of Sri Adhi

Sankarar is the Advaitha philosophy. I do not want to elaborate on it as

all of you would know what is the basis of this philosophy. However, in

short, Advaitha preaches that the jeevAthmA and the paramAthmA are the one

and the same and that the difference that we see are due to the "mAyA" or

illusion and when the jeevAthmA realises the truth (?) that he is the same

as the brahman, that is the sate of mOksha. Another important point in

Advaitha is that the brahman has no attributes (nirguNa) or forms.

 

This was contradicting many statements in the vEdAs where it is clearly

stated that the jeevAthmAs are not the same as paramAthmAs and that the

paramAthmA or the brahman has very clearly identifiable guNAs and forms.

But THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT TO REMEMBER is that Sri Adhi Sankarar DID NOT

USE ANY OTHER SOURCE THAN THE VEDAS TO SUPPORT HIS ADVAITHA PHILOSOPHY.

 

With this in mind, let us see the AchAryAs whom this author has referred.

Sriman Nathamunigal was the intrumental AchAryA in bringing out the

nAlAyira divya prabhandham which were lost for quite some time. He

struggled hard to get the acceptance of the brahmin community for this

Tamil works as in those days the brahmins were not treating Tamil on par

with Sanskrit. He succeeded only very little. Then came Sri Alavandhar

after Sri Uyyakkondar and Sri Manakkal Nambi. In fact, from history it is

clear that even Sri Alavandhar succeded only minimally in propagating the

AzhwArs' works. This is evident from the history that propagating the

nAlAyira divya prabhandham was one of his ardent desires, which he could

not complete in his life time and hence asked Sri Ramanuja to do the same.

It is also known to everybody that Sri Alavandhar asked Sri Ramanuja to

write a bhAshyam for the Brahma sUtrAs based on the AzhwArs' works. In

fact, Sri Alavandhar wanted Sri Ramanuja to refute Advaitha very clearly.

 

Now, when an argument is going on, the reference works and the supporting

works used for the arguments should be the same between the arguing people.

It is clearly recorded that when Sri Ramanuja was writing Sri BhAshyam, he

took the divya prabhandams as his support whenever he had a doubt. But he

cannot explicitly tell this out because the divya prabhandams were in

consideration only within the Sri Vaishnavite community and not the entire

brahmin community. Also, except for the ChOzhiya Sri Vaishnavites, who

practised Sri Vaishnavism right from the beginning (eternity), all other

brahmins, including Sri Ramanuja's forefathers, where of the vadamAL

origin. And as indicated above the AzhwAr's works did not get the full

acceptance of the Brahmin community. So, as per the rules Sri Ramanuja had

to use only the vEdAs and upanishads to support his claim for upholding the

visishTAdhvaitha philosophy as the true purport of the vEdAs.

 

It is also to be noted clearly that all the works of Sri Ramanuja was

directed against the advaithIs and hence he had to quote only from the

common works like vEdAs, AgamAs and upanishads and not from the Divya

prabhandams. THIS IS THE ACTUAL REASON FOR Sri Ramanuja NOT REFERRING TO

THE DIVYA PRABHANDHAMS IN ANY OF HIS WORKS. Once again please read through

the Guruparamparai, where clearly it is indicated how Sri Ramanuja gave the

correct interpretation of the ChAndhOgya upanishad vAkhyam "tasya yathA

kapyAsm puNdareekam yEvam akshiNI". This is a very interesting one and I

will post this separately. Sri Ramanuja took the AzhwAr's words as his

support while writing the correct interpretation with utmost conviction.

 

Regarding the Author saying that the other AzhwArs works are only

devotional and not philosophical, it only throws the author in a poor light

that he has not read the AzhwAr's works completely. In fact the

MudhalAzhwAr's works are only philosophy talking about the paratvam of

Sriman Narayanan. Of course, we have the nAnmugan thiruvandhAdhi and the

thiruchhandha viruttham of Sri Thirumazhisai AzhwAr which again talks about

the philosophy of visishTAdvaitha. Remember that the Thirucchandha

viruttham starts with "pooNilAya aindhumAi...". If this is not philosophy,

what else is the philosophy.

 

Regarding Sri Nammazhwar not refuting the advaithA, again it shows that the

author has no knowledge of interpreting and accepting things in the actual

sense. There are actually two ways to refute a point. One is to point out

the errors and then present the correct view and the other is to just tell

the truth without pointing out the flaws of the other person. In fact what

Sri Nammazhwar has done is the same as the second above. Also, it is to be

remembered that Advaitha got its acceptance only after Sri Adhi Sankarar

and during the time of Sri Nammazhwar it had very little or no acceptance

at all. Hence there was no need for Sri Nammazhwar to refute it at all. But

the foremost reason for Sri Nammazhwar not refuting it (even considering

the little consideration it 'might' have had) is that Sri Nammazhwar was

singing the prabhandhams for him to attain the lotus feet of Sriman

Narayanan and not for entering into any argument like Sri Ramanuja. So

where is the question of Sri Nammazhwar attempting to refute it.

 

All these only proves that the author, who has written this, has absolutely

no knowledge of Sri Vaishnavism and its history and society at the time of

happening of these incidents. (I do not know, the author might be a

SriVaishnavite himself. If it is so, then it is only unfortunate)

 

======Quote 2==================

2. "The natural inference is that a section of the srivaishnavas felt

that thirukurukai-piran pillan's commentary though it had the

approval of Sri Ramanuja and was considered the standard one, did not

dp full justice to Nammazhvar's Tiruvaymoli, or that it was not

illuminative".(The author here shows his view that pillan's

commentary was accepted by the vadagalais and the tengalai acharyas

from nanjiyar and others did not accept that and hence made other

commentaries)

===End Quote 2=================

 

This rather gives a feeling that the author is a Vadakalai srivaishnavite.

Every one knows why there are so many commentaries for ThiruvAimozhi. Again

the society is the reason for all these. The ARAyirappadi of Sri

Thirukkurugaip pirAn piLLAn is the first and foremost and it was certainly

written with the blessings of Sri Ramanuja. The author says here that "Sri

TKPP does not refer to this anywhere. So it cannot be construed that Sri

Ramanuja inspired this". If that is so, then why the vadagalais accept this

6000p padi as the authentic version and say that it is authentic because

Sri Ramanuja gave his approval for this. The author, as correctly pointed

out by Smt Sumitra Varadarajan, has contradicted his very own statement.

How poor?!

 

=====Quote 3=========

3. "Ramanuja has not quoted a single tamil verse from thiruvaimozhi

as authority..............So it could not with justification or in

fairness be said that his philosophy was to any extent inspired by

the teachings of the thiruvaimozhi".

====End Quote 3======

 

The rebuttal given for the "Quote 1" is very much valid for this too.

 

=====Quote 4==========

1. "The tanians prefixed to the other three works of Sri Nammazhvar

and to the other works of the prabhandam show that these works were

discovered by later acharyas."

====End Quote 4=====

This again only proves that the author does not know anything about the Sri

Vaishnava sampradhAyam. It is a well known fact that Sriman Nathamunigal

brought the Nalayira Divya prabhandhams to the fore after it was lost for a

while and then passed it on to Sri Alavandhar through Sri Uyyakkondar and

Sri Manakkal Nambi and in turn Sri Alavandhar passed it on to Sri Ramanuja

through Sri Thiruvaranga Perumal Arayar. Then how is the author saying that

the AchAryas who wrote the thaniyans had discovered the same.

 

There is another way this can be refuted. When I will write about Sri

Ramanuja's interpretation of the ChAndhogya upanishad vAkhyam, I will prove

that Sri Ramanuja has considered, not only thiruvAimozhi but many other

pAsurams for which the thaniyans were given by AchAryas who lived after Sri

Ramanuja. It it were these AchAryAs, who gave the thaniyans, who really

discovered these prabhandhams, then how is it possible that Sri Ramanuja

considered this? Foolish again on the part of the author.

 

===Quote 5============

2. "One Tiruvaimozhi pillai alias tirumalai alvan born in 1325 A.d

wrote a commentary on periya alvar's Tirumoli. He is the son of

Pillai Lokacharya."

===End quote 5==========

 

I feel frustrated to say again and again that the author has no knowledge

about our sampradhAyam or its history or the Guruparamparai. It is a well

know fact that Sri Pillai Lokachariar was a bachelor, a naishTika

brahmachAri. Then how is it possible that he had a son. In fact Sri

Thiruvaimozhi pillai was born in the place of Kunthee nagaram. I do not

have the name of his illustrious parents. I will post it in my next mail.

But I am sure every one knows the fact that Sri Pillai Lokachariar was a

bachelor and more importantly Sri Thiruvaimozhip Pillai was NOT the son of

Sri Pillai Lokachariar. I hope you now know how much weightage should be

given to this blabbering of the author.

 

====Quote 6==========

3. "Whether the thiruvaimozhi was seriously studied before the

appearance of the commentary by pillan and whether the other twenty

three works which make up the prabhandam were known to and were

studied by Sri Ramanuja are matters open to doubt"

4. " pillan does not say anywhere therein that he executed the work

in obedience to Sri Ramanuja's command and that it had the seal of

his approval".

=====End Quote 6======

 

In my humble opinion, the matter open to doubt is not what the author has

said above, but the very knowledge of the author who wrote all these

abatthams. I think I have fairly been able to succeed in proving that the

author has no knowledge about our sampradhAyam.

 

But what is more hurting is that such foolish articles are appearing in a

magazine run by a Sri Vaishnavite temple. This should be strongly

criticized and condemned by one and all. Will a Saivaite temple magazine

have an article denouncing the nAyanmArs. The entire world is taking the

Sri Vaishnavites alone for a ride considering us as fools. I request every

one of you to take this up seriously with the TTD through any source.

 

AzhwAr emberumAnAr jeeyar thiruvadigaLE saraNam

adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan

Thirumalai Vinjamoor Venkatesh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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