Guest guest Posted February 15, 2002 Report Share Posted February 15, 2002 Dear Toni, I have heard C.R. Rajagopalachari's (Also called Rajaji, a famous scholar who had transalated Mahabharatha and Ramayana in English) discussion on this issue - He describes it in the introduction to M.S. Subbalakshmi's cassette on Bhaja Govindam He says that according to Sankara, Gnana and Bhakti are one and the same. Shankara emphasised that ripened Gnana becomes Bhakti. Historically looking at Shankara's life story one finds that the earlier part of his life, he was focussed on establishing the " Gnana " path - his discussions with Mandana Mishra and defeat of the " Samanas " sect by use of logic are examples. However the same Shankara in his later part of his life after having established the Gnana path was one who composed devotional hymns of gods and godesses and popularised the Bhakti aspect as well- Specific examples recounted by Rajaji in his introduction are " Bhaja Govindham (Lord Krishna) " and " Soundharyalahiri " (on the divine blissful mother Raja Rajeshwari) So, what I understand is that Shankara did not consider the paths to be inferior. In fact according to Rajaji, he thought Bhakti to be the easier path to aminister complex truths to the people and went about doing so in a big way. Hope this helps! with love, Sreedhar > - > " toni nelson " <the_tribulation > Thursday, February 14, 2002 01:41 > the bhagavad gita > > sir/madam > > i am presently studying hinduism at nailsea school and we are looking at > the bhagavad gita and it's views on bhakti and karma yoga. in my > essay i have to include sankara's popularisation of the gita, his > views on bhakti and karma yoga, and views prior to him. > to me there seems to be a contradiction. zaehner's introduction to > hinduism comments on how sankara thought bhakti was inferior to jnana. > This contrasts what my tutor taught us about how sankara changed these > traditional ideas by popularising the gita. i'd really appreciate your > help as my essays due in on monday! no worries if you > haven't the time! > > > toni nelson > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~response~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > Dear Toni > > Your question is very interesting.... We will ask some of our > list members to resond to you directly or via our list. > I am pretty sure you will get very interesting answers.... > > jay Vivekananda Centre London > -------------- Sreedhar T Bharath Department of Finance 9-153 44 West 4th Street New York NY -10012 212-998-0376(W) 212-995-4233(Fax) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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