On some theories of Gaudiya Vaishnavas

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SrI:

SrI Lakshminrusimha ParabrahmaNE namaha

SrI Lakshminrusimha divya pAdukA sEvaka SrIvaN SatakOpa -

SrI nArAyaNa yateendra mahAdESIkAya namaha

 

Dear devotees,

namO nArAyaNa.

 

A response to certain queries and statements by non-malolan

net members :

 

> 3. sri Jiva goswami of the same school in his tattav

> sandharbha strongly establishes the bagavatham as the

> best of all the pramanams incl. the srutis even.

 

SrImad BhAgavatham as such is considered as " Sruti "

by some Gaudiya Vaishnava AchAryas, which can't be

accepted by us and other vaidikAs ie. those who follow

vEdas. adiyEn doesn't know as to whether SrI BaladEva,

who wrote a commentry for Brahma sUtras for Gaudiya

Vaishnavas, endorses the view that SrImad BhAgavatham is

a Sruti. It will then be contradictory to quote SrImad

BhAgavatham as a pramAna by him, in those places where sUtras

refer to a Smruti for further strengthening its standpoint.

 

 

> 4. on why sri bhasyakarar did not include srimad

> bhagavatham as one of the pramanams, a) srimad

> bhagavatahma states that Lord Krishna to be the

> supreme lord and not an avatara.(in the krishna

> sandharbha this is established by jiva goswami)while

> Sri VP states on the contrary.

 

SrImad BhAgavatham (SB) has nowhere contradicted VEdAnta.

Gaudiya Vaishnavas take the SB verse " etE .....krishNAstu

bhagavAn swayam " to understand as if Lord KrishNa is the

" original " God and four handed forms of God are only His

expansions. They call these four handed forms of God as

NArAyana.

 

Its only a misunderstanding of that verse by Gaudiya

Vaishnavas (GVs) and adiyEn has earlier posted an article on

this issue. Please refer the archives.

 

One of the difficulties in the philosophy of GVs is that,

they have a graded version of the Ultimate Truth viz.

BhagavAn, ParamAtma and NirguNa Brahman.

 

BhagavAn is equated with Lord KrishNa who is accalimed

by them as the original God, filled with all auspicious

qualities etc. To be more precise, some GVs also say that,

only that KrishNa who was at BrindAvan playing with gOpis,

and esp. who did rAsa krIda is the " original " God and

all other forms are only His expansions. For GVs, there

is a gradation in moksha. For them, there are many VaikuNThas

and one place apart from them called Goloka, all of which

are not in the material world. The different VaikuNThas

are said to be presided by various expansions of the original

God KrishNa, who is at Goloka. To adiyEn's understanding, they

also say inherent differences in the jIvAtmas. According to

them, certain jIvAtmas are inherently related to Original God

to be in " mAdhurya rasa " ie.the relationship as that of

gOpis who played the rAsa krIda with Lord. Some are related

as that of YasOda, some as that of Arjuna as a friend etc.

Thus, they hold difference in the vary nature of jIvAtmas itself.

According to them, mAdhurya rasa is experienced at Goloka and

thus forms the ultimate moksham. Attainment of other vaikuNThas

are of lower nature due to the non-availibility of this mAdhurya

rasa. Well, these gradation system in moksha has no scriptural

authority (accepted by other vEdAntins) and its their formulation

due to their excessive love for Lord KrishNa. There is no mention

of such gradations in principal Upanishads, Brahma sUtras and

Bhagavad gIta. Infact, there are many contradictory statements

to their theory.

 

ParamAtma is also none other than BhagavAn, but an expansion of

Him, manifesting only certain qualities etc. To adiyEn's

understanding, they equate ParamAtma with the antaryAmi form

of PerumAL and also to other 4 handed forms of PerumAL.

 

Surprisingly, they also accept the existence of " NirguNa Brhaman "

as that of Sankara. But, it is equated to the effulgence coming

out of the divine body of BhagavAn. The effulgence spreads

outside of the spiritual world and those who are after nirguNa

Brahman (advaitins) are said to get merged into that effulgence.

But, this NirguNa Brahman is none other than BhagavAn for them

in ultimate reality, but is only an expansion of BhagavAn. This

gives them a very contradictory metaphysical stand since BhagavAn

is savisEsha (who has various guNas, form etc) and He can't

simultaneously be " nirvisEsha " (without any attributes whatsoever)

as " NirguNa Brahman " . They also say that BhagavAn and His

attributes are absolutely same, which is logically contradictory.

They get into a fix and dispose all these by saying that its

" acintya " ie. un-explicable. Similar to how advaitins

conveniently try to escape the objections by incorporating all of

them into the " nature of avidya " , GVs incorporate the objections

into " acintya " (ie. " Unexplicable " is the very answer, though our

Bhagavad RAmanuja has clearly established as to how the tattvas

are clearly explainable without contradictions). Bhagavad

RAmAnuja's establishment of the tattvAs and esp. the relationship

between Brahman and chit+achit, is fully grounded in Upanishads

themselves (ie. SarIra-SarIri bhAva and the concept of apruthak

siddi ie. inseparable union is verily present in Upanishads).

But the acintya theory of GVs is a logical deduction from the

metaphysical stand they hold for various tattvas and thus

" yukti " (logic) scores over the pramAna for them ultimately.

 

 

Also, none of the Brahma vidyas ( ie.upAsanAs prescribed in

Upanishads, which are the direct means for attaining moksha; also

known as bhakti yOga in Bhagavad gIta) in Upanishads has

instructed the meditation of Lord KrishNa who is their BhagavAn,

for attaining moksha. The meditation of Brahman in various Brahma

vidyAs of Upanishads are of the category belonging to the

meditaion of ParamAtma for GVs. To circumvent this problem, GVs

probably raised the status of SB to a parallel Sruti and thus

claim that meditaion on Lord KrishNa is also a direct means for

moksha and also that its the highest form of moksha. They say that

SB is also a " Sruti " and thus we can derive this information.

Even by accepting SB as a Sruti, they can't actually prove this

standpoint very authoritatively.

 

Considering Lord KrishNa as the " original God " is a direct

violation of very authoritative texts of pAncarAtra AgamAs.

Lakshmi Tantra (11.19-25), SAtvata Samhita (ch.9) and Ahirbudhnya

Samhita (5.50-57) clearly enumerate the various vibhava avatAras

like Lord Nrusimha, Lord vAmana, Lord RAma and others, and

Lord KrishNa is in this list. SrI Vaishnava AchAryas have

clearly made this point and that Lord KrishNa's form as

such is not the " para " form, and He is a vibhava avatAra only,

like Lord Nrusimha, Lord RAma and others.

 

Also, according to SAstras, those who perform upAsana (deep

meditation) on the vibhava forms of God will reach the vibhava

lOkas, which are actually inside the material world. Similarly,

those who meditate upon the vyUha forms of God will reach the

vyUha lOkas. Please refer to archives for more information on

this issue. Thus, meditation on Lord KrishNa (and not adopting

any standard upAsana prescribed in Upanishads) will make one

attain GOloka, which is inside the material world only. There

is only one spiritual world called VaikuNTha and there is no

gradation in moksha.

 

For a prapanna, it doesn't matter as to which form of God

( vyUha, vibhava, arca etc) he/she worships, since the means

(sAdhyaupAya) of moksha is not " upAsana " , but prapatti/

SaraNAgathi itself. But, those who adopt bhakti yOga

ie.upAsana should neccessarily come to the stage of adopting

an upAsana. PAncarAtra aids one to come to that stage, by

prescribing meditations on vyUha, vibhava avatAras etc. Brahma

sUtras deal with the way one has to perform the bhakti-yOga ie.

upAsana and the upAsana of vyUha, vibhava avatAras in pAncarAtra

doesn't incorporate such rigorous specifications.

 

-------------------------

Another devotee, non-member of Sri Malolan Net, wrote

My question is Lord krishna revealed all the 64

qualities which a supreme personality of godhead

possess.But in all the other avathars he didnt reveal

all his qualities.Does this mean during other avathars

he didnt not possess it or he din't reveal

it.(Especially during rama avathara where he took a

human birth and livrd with manushya sharira)

Sripathy

---------------------

 

There is nothing like God has only 64 qualities. Its just

an enumeration by a GV AchArya for the purpose of enjoying

the auspicious qualities. God has infinitely many auspicious

qualities. There is nothing like Lord RAma has lesser

number of qualities than Lord KrishNa etc. Even according

to GVs, both Lord Rama and Lord KrishNa are same, but

different only in the manifestation of qualities and ofcourse

Lord KrishNa being the original for them.

 

One can enumerate qualities of Lord RAma like " ever speaker of

truth " , " marrier of only one wife " etc which can't be found in

Lord KrishNa. Based on this, one should not arrive at

conclusions like one avatAra is superior to other absolutely.

The superiority of the avatAras are being talked about, only

based on certain manifestation of guNas etc of the same person

and the " stress " is on the experience of such guNas and not to

make an absolute metaphysical distinction as if Lord RAma is

ever inferior to the avatAra of Lord KrishNa etc. Since its

the same God who takes many avatAras, one should enjoy all the

auspicious qualities exhibited in all the avatAras and there

is no Sastric authority to state that worshipping Lord KrishNa

is superior to Lord RAma etc. Such theories are formulated by

GVs out of their excessive love towards Lord KrishNa.

 

 

> b) in some places as alredy brought out by other

> rs the position of Sri is not as in the

> Vishnu puraanam eg. She could not take part in the

> Rasa Lila of Krishna .

 

adiyEn has seen many GVs keep stressing that only those in

mAdhurya rasa (like gOpis) can perform rAsa krIda with

Lord KrishNa and even " SrI " ie.Lakshmi dEvi can't perform it.

These argumnets are made due to the lack of understanding

of the tattvas. Moreoever, there is nothing in SrImad BhAgavatham

that supports these theories. " SrI " is verily the consort

of God and is always in all possible anubhavas with God, by being

present ever in union with Him. Even when Lord KrishNa was playing

rAsa krIda, " SrI " was united with Him in His chest with a rUpa,

apart from being united together through their divyAtma swaroopas

(ie.God by His divyAtma swaroopa is all pervading and the

divya aatma Swaroopa of SrI is in union with Him).

 

adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan,

anantapadmanAbhan.

krishNArpaNam.