bracketed portion tangential?

[Guest guest]

"Belief in preta-sraddha was so deep that even certain persons claiming

descent from Sri Advaita Acarya would annually burn a straw image of Him, as

if He, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, needed to be delivered from

ghostly birth. [sri Advaita Acarya was famed for having demonstrated the

glory of a Vaisnava over that of a mundane brahmana by giving the

sraddha-patra (food offered to the forefathers) to Srila Haridasa Thakura

The sraddha-patra is to be submitted to the most illustrious brahmanas, and

according to smarta-vicara Srila Haridasa Thakura was of the lowest possible

birth, but Sri Advaita Acarya declared Haridasa to be more exalted than

millions of nondevotee brahmanas.] But now the so-called descendants of Sri

Advaita Acarya, being fully committed to and contaminated by smarta-vada,

were thus mindlessly perpetrating one of the severist offenses imaginable."

 

 

I am told that the portion within brackets is tangential, if not wholly

unrelated, to the lead sentence of the para. I disagree, feeling it

essential to bring out the irony: descendants of Advaita Acarya adherence to

smarta sraddha (by burning His image!), despite Advaita Acarya having had

rejected such smarta sraddha.

 

NB the previous para previous states that preta-sraddha was a ritual of

smarta-vada.