My problems with the philosophy of Srila Prabhupada

[guliaditya]

Respected Loverofthebhagavata,

 

Pls reply to my other queries.Jahnava Nitai Das prabhu has replied to my queries. Can u also reply??

 

Yours

Aditya

[LoveroftheBhagavata]

 

5) Sri Bhagvatam Third canto…..Srila prabhupdas has copied from gita press edition. Sril prabhupada use to comment on gita press as full of mayavad philosophy then why he copied mayavadi phiolosophy?????<?xml:namespace prefix = o />

 

Hare Krishna Aditya,

 

I already tackled your first 4 questions on guru paramparas and sampradayas, and JNji took charge of the Puranas classification list, about which I have the following to say, namely that the Puranic corpus of literatures is increasingly being accepted by scholars and academicians as being way more ancient than was commonly thought in the past, and no less a prominent figure than Ludo Rocher, a German Indologist whose work is widely hailed as THE current industry standard as far as this given body of texts is concerned, had to concede in his 1986 book "The Puranas" that the literary evidence studied by him leads to the conclusion that indeed, as per native Indian tradition, Puranas existed on a par with the Vedas in the distant past, and served as companion volumes to them, since they were more easily understood by ordinary people. Other than Rocher, other specialists in the field have also reached similar or comparable ideas. This of course matters little to Vedic practitioners who place faith directly in the words of shastra and have intimate conviction in the truths propounded therein. And the majority of texts have been corrupted over time, with a great too many interpolations being now present in them. However, to an attentive reader, there is sufficient cross-checking and corroboration still between the surviving recensions of the different scriptures to allow a sincere student extract the essence of Veda and benefit from it. In addition, the sattvika Puranas are obviously superior to the rest of the canon to an objective person, just as the Srimad Bhagavatam, which has mystified more than one academic scholar for the unified structure of its composition and rigour of thought, is evidently superior to the other mode-of-goodness Puranas. However, although the accepted paradigms of academia do not hold much importance for devotees, it is gratifying to see that researchers are having to modify their views to some extent, and more often than not, these revisions are in the direction in which sadhakas are swimming, i.e. the version held by shastra.

 

As for the Gita Press problem, what can I say other than that I do not know much about that, but I do recall reading somewhere a while back that Bhaktivedanta Swamiji once told a disciple who had made this very enquiry to him that the translations of the Sanskrit verses from different quarters were not altogether that different, and that his purports, the base for which he used the commentaries of several previous acharyas, brought out the meaning of those shlokas.

 

As for the accusations of mayavada contamination, I ignore whether ACBSP really did make those charges, but even if he did, I would not quite concur with such a pronouncement. To my novice eye, and that of many others, the Gita Press in Gorakhpur is doing a fine job indeed, and I find that their publications promote a generic Vaishnava viewpoint, whilst not strictly adhering to the understanding of any one sampradaya. I think that a visit to their website www.gitapress.org could possibly convince you of the same.

 

Radhe Radhe

[guliaditya]

Respected loverofthebhagavata,

 

I am very much thankful to you for your kind reply. I will further get back to you on the same queries with my views. Due to pressure of work I may take a day or two to get back to you.

 

Yours

Aditya