Legitimacy of other vedic 'deities' claim to be brahman

[Guest guest]

Dear Kasturi Rangan,

Kindly forgive me for pursuing this thread and please feel free to

correct me if I am wrong. I've heard that Purusha Suktham is in all

the 3 (rik, yajur and sama) vedas. It talks about the manifestation

of the Leela Vibhuthi - Material World(starting from 'braahmanosya

mukham aaseeth') from a being called Virata Purushan('tasmaat viraat

ajaayatha'). It is stated that the devas performed an yagya called

sarva aahuthi('tasmaat yagyaath sarvahutha:') upon which the Virata

Purusha was satisfied and he came before them and initiated the leela

vibhuti manifestation. It is also stated that the whole universe

(Leela Vibhuti) thus came into existence from his 'Naval'('Naabhya

aaseeth anthariksham').

Now, a) who is this Virata Purushan? b) Why weren't the other deities

not able to manifest the leela vibhuthi the way this Virata Purushan

was able to?

Answer to a) is, this Virata Purushan is the form that we worship,

that we call as Narayana - (in artha panchakam, this Virata Purushan

is the Vyuha Vasudevan?!), reasons being: 1) Both these forms have

been known for the lotus coming out of the naval, and this lotus

leading to the creation of this universe that we see and live. 2) The

same purusha sukta continues to say that this Virata Purusha is the

one who has Hree and Lakshmi as his wives - (hreeshca) Hree and

(lakshmishca) Laskhmi are (patnyau) wives (te) to you - (reference

http://www.ramanuja.org/purusha/sukta-6.html#6). Per innumerous

references from the same vedas, we infer that Narayana aka Vishnu is

the one who has Hree and Lakshmi as his wives.

Answer to b) - I don't know. Some learned one could elaborate on the

same. Well, I could only infer that this is the best form of the

brahmam(and hence is an equivalent and prime form of the brahmam as

revealed to the vedic seers) that "is" capable of the "jagat

vyaparam" and as per the brahma sutras, jagat vyaparam is unique to

the paramatma. Hence, it is clear without any doubt that this form,

Narayana, could be claimed and worshipped as the supreme one, per

vedas.

 

There are other statements like 'devAnAm parama:' etc. Why even go to

that, 'tat tvam asi svetha ketho' could be interpreted to mean that

svethakethu is the brahmam;). There are innumerous ways to interpret

these statements. Our acharyas had mastered all the vedas and hence

they could define the context, usage and hence the appropriate

interpretation for the same, unlike us, who try to interpret the

same, line by line and hence quote one or two lines from the vedas to

support our view.

 

I haven't heard about any other form being claimed by the Vedas as

the one that performs jagat vyaparam. Learned scholars, kindly feel

free to correct me.

 

My apologies for my ignorance and mistakes. Absolutely, no offense

intended upon anyone.

 

Yatheendra Pravanam Vandhe RAMYA Jaamaataram Munim

 

Adiyen,

Ramanuja Dasan

 

> (b) Legitimacy of other vedic 'deities' claim to be brahman:

> If we accept the 'entire shruthi' as pramANa, rudra is mentioned

> as 'devAnAm parama:' supreme God in Taittriya Aranyaka and also

> termed as pashupathi. Brihaspathi is called brahman!!!!! in

numerous

> places in the very first khanda of taittriya samhita. This is no

> different from another line in nArAyaNopanishad which

says 'nArAyaNa

> param brahma'. Do you think we have to turn a blind eye to all

these

> with the escape sequence 'all vedanta acharyas didn't doubt

> NarayaNa's paratvam?'.