Guest guest Report post Posted April 11, 2003 Sri: Srimathe Ramanujaya nama: SriSita Lakshmana Bharatha Shatrugna Hanuman sametha SriRamachandra Parabrahmane nama: Dear saha bhAgavthAs, Accept my pranams. Wish you all Happy SriRama navami and advanced Tamil New Year celebrations. May the Divine Couple bless this entire universe. Srirama is endowed with anantha kalyANa guNas yet the prime quality He exhibits is sowshIlyam(condescension). The Valmiki Ramayana is nothig but the love story of SriRama(paramAtma)and sita(jIvAtma). We are the natural subjects of His boundless love. It is the story of "vipralambha shrngAra" or "the story of the love of the separated". SriRama set an example for everything(ideal son,ideal husband,ideal,brother,ideal friend and so on). No matter how many times the Ramayana is narrated, it never exhausts our energy but it only creates additional hunger for it as it brings the picture of the Lord live infront of us. This reminds our Sri kulashekhara AzhvAr, whose favorite was SriRama and his pastimes was hearing SriRamayana,got engrossed in it that when he heard Lord was fighting Ravana single handedly,overcame with emotional love for the Lord and concern for Lord's safety,got up and with his army went all the way to cross the indian ocean. EVeryone is familiar with this story. This is the greatness of SriRama avathAra. Although Sri Valmiki describes Sita's ideal love for SriRama in many places,we see the love reaching its pinnacle during her exile in Asokavana,an episode in Sundara kANda. Sita's love for SriRama is unparalleled and the misery that she is undergoing on account of her separation from SriRama is unberable and indescribable that even Hanuman says that his mind is pained at the sight of Sita's misery(NammAzhvAr also undergoes this Union and Separation with the Lord). It is even justified to say that Hanuman became a perfect bhaktha only after wiitnessing Sita/thAyAr's bhakthi. When Hanuman (known for rigorous celibacy),for the first time,met SriRama on the banks of Pampa,was puzzled,how the great IshvAku descendant could lose Himself in grief for the loss of a wife. Hanuman realised the mutual love of the Divine Couple only after he saw thAyAr in Asokavana. Hanuman,praises SriRama's love for Sita,in a highly emotional tone as follows: iyam sA yathkrthE rAMashcathurbhi: parithapyathE | kAruNyE nAnrshamsyEna shOkEna madhanEna ca || sthrI punaprthEthi kAruNyAth AshrithEthi Anrshamsyath | pathnI naShtEthi shOkEna priyEthi madhanEna ca || "this is the noble Sita,whose separation the Lord is grieving for a four-fold loss,namely the loss of a woman(sthrI),dependent(Ashritha), wife(pathnI) and sweetheart(priyE)" Normally the grief over the loss of a person/thing is directly proportional to the value attached to it. Greater is the effect of the love when we are separated from the "lost" person/thing. One can have more than one type of attachment/relation with the other person. This is again best illustrated by Bharatha's own words. BharathA says to SriRama " bhrAthu shishaShyasya dhAsasya"(I am your brother,disciple and slave) LakshmaNa,who had an insatiable hunger to serve SriRama,introduced himself to Hanuman as follows: "ahamasyAvarO bhrAthA juNair dhAsyam upAgatha:" (I was born SriRama's brother but having been attracted by His qualities,I have become His camp-follower even in His exile). Also refer to SVB 110 which explains this characteristic of Lakshmana. One should not misinterpret that Lakshmana's love was motivated by Lord's auspicious traits. One should remember that Lakshmana,being the incarnation of AdishESha(first servant),was devoted to SriRama right from the cradle(bAlyAth prAbruthi shushnigdha:). What about Sita's love for the Lord? refer to SVB 114. Sita tells anasuya " my love for SriRama is spontaneous but people are likely to construe that I love Him because of His excellence (physical and mental). It is difficult for me to prove that my fidelity has no strings attached to it. My fidelity will remain constant even if He were to be exactly the opposite of what He is". Similarly PerumAL/Lord is also attached to His devotees in more than one way. Therefore,He naturally grieved on various counts,during Sita-SriRama estrangement. All the time He worries about us and concerned about our welfare. NammAzhvAr says "uRanguvAn pOl yOgam seidhu". This wonderful trait of SriRama should be heartening to us and assures all those,who keep asking "does God answer our prayers",that they have His attention. Lastly there is no fun and the love/service is also incomplete if we don't join the bandwagon "mangaLAshAsana ghOShti" headed by PeriAzhvAr. So let us all pray for the safety and the well being of the Lord. mangaLam kOsalEndhrAya mahanIya guNAthmanE | chakravarthy thanUjAya sArva bhaumAya mangaLam || AzhvAr EmperumAnAr JIyar thiruvadigaLE sharaNam NC Nappinnai Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest guest Report post Posted April 11, 2003 Sri: Sri Nappinnai, Thanks for the nice article. I had gone to the ISKCON temple for Sri Rama Navami yesterday, and according to Gaudiya Vaishnavism, the Sita that was kidnapped and incarcerated by Ravana was not the original Piratti, but Mayadevi. I would like to know from the adiyaars in this group, if they had ever heard of this version of the story of Lord Rama and if so, the origins of it, could it be Srimad Bhagavatham for GVs give maximum importance to SB?? Now, lets not attack the GVs in the process, they are another Vaishnava Sampradaya. I just thought that that piece of information was rather interesting to share it with the group, and want to know what the Adiyaars in this group think of the understanding of the GVs. Dasan, Kidambi Soundararajan nappinnai_nc <nappinnai_nc wrote:Sri: Srimathe Ramanujaya nama: SriSita Lakshmana Bharatha Shatrugna Hanuman sametha SriRamachandra Parabrahmane nama: Dear saha bhAgavthAs, Accept my pranams. Wish you all Happy SriRama navami and advanced Tamil New Year celebrations. May the Divine Couple bless this entire universe. Srirama is endowed with anantha kalyANa guNas yet the prime quality He exhibits is sowshIlyam(condescension). The Valmiki Ramayana is nothig but the love story of SriRama(paramAtma)and sita(jIvAtma). We are the natural subjects of His boundless love. It is the story of "vipralambha shrngAra" or "the story of the love of the separated". SriRama set an example for everything(ideal son,ideal husband,ideal,brother,ideal friend and so on). No matter how many times the Ramayana is narrated, it never exhausts our energy but it only creates additional hunger for it as it brings the picture of the Lord live infront of us. This reminds our Sri kulashekhara AzhvAr, whose favorite was SriRama and his pastimes was hearing SriRamayana,got engrossed in it that when he heard Lord was fighting Ravana single handedly,overcame with emotional love for the Lord and concern for Lord's safety,got up and with his army went all the way to cross the indian ocean. EVeryone is familiar with this story. This is the greatness of SriRama avathAra. Although Sri Valmiki describes Sita's ideal love for SriRama in many places,we see the love reaching its pinnacle during her exile in Asokavana,an episode in Sundara kANda. Sita's love for SriRama is unparalleled and the misery that she is undergoing on account of her separation from SriRama is unberable and indescribable that even Hanuman says that his mind is pained at the sight of Sita's misery(NammAzhvAr also undergoes this Union and Separation with the Lord). It is even justified to say that Hanuman became a perfect bhaktha only after wiitnessing Sita/thAyAr's bhakthi. When Hanuman (known for rigorous celibacy),for the first time,met SriRama on the banks of Pampa,was puzzled,how the great IshvAku descendant could lose Himself in grief for the loss of a wife. Hanuman realised the mutual love of the Divine Couple only after he saw thAyAr in Asokavana. Hanuman,praises SriRama's love for Sita,in a highly emotional tone as follows: iyam sA yathkrthE rAMashcathurbhi: parithapyathE | kAruNyE nAnrshamsyEna shOkEna madhanEna ca || sthrI punaprthEthi kAruNyAth AshrithEthi Anrshamsyath | pathnI naShtEthi shOkEna priyEthi madhanEna ca || "this is the noble Sita,whose separation the Lord is grieving for a four-fold loss,namely the loss of a woman(sthrI),dependent(Ashritha), wife(pathnI) and sweetheart(priyE)" Normally the grief over the loss of a person/thing is directly proportional to the value attached to it. Greater is the effect of the love when we are separated from the "lost" person/thing. One can have more than one type of attachment/relation with the other person. This is again best illustrated by Bharatha's own words. BharathA says to SriRama " bhrAthu shishaShyasya dhAsasya"(I am your brother,disciple and slave) LakshmaNa,who had an insatiable hunger to serve SriRama,introduced himself to Hanuman as follows: "ahamasyAvarO bhrAthA juNair dhAsyam upAgatha:" (I was born SriRama's brother but having been attracted by His qualities,I have become His camp-follower even in His exile). Also refer to SVB 110 which explains this characteristic of Lakshmana. One should not misinterpret that Lakshmana's love was motivated by Lord's auspicious traits. One should remember that Lakshmana,being the incarnation of AdishESha(first servant),was devoted to SriRama right from the cradle(bAlyAth prAbruthi shushnigdha:). What about Sita's love for the Lord? refer to SVB 114. Sita tells anasuya " my love for SriRama is spontaneous but people are likely to construe that I love Him because of His excellence (physical and mental). It is difficult for me to prove that my fidelity has no strings attached to it. My fidelity will remain constant even if He were to be exactly the opposite of what He is". Similarly PerumAL/Lord is also attached to His devotees in more than one way. Therefore,He naturally grieved on various counts,during Sita-SriRama estrangement. All the time He worries about us and concerned about our welfare. NammAzhvAr says "uRanguvAn pOl yOgam seidhu". This wonderful trait of SriRama should be heartening to us and assures all those,who keep asking "does God answer our prayers",that they have His attention. Lastly there is no fun and the love/service is also incomplete if we don't join the bandwagon "mangaLAshAsana ghOShti" headed by PeriAzhvAr. So let us all pray for the safety and the well being of the Lord. mangaLam kOsalEndhrAya mahanIya guNAthmanE | chakravarthy thanUjAya sArva bhaumAya mangaLam || AzhvAr EmperumAnAr JIyar thiruvadigaLE sharaNam NC Nappinnai azhwAr emberumAnAr jeeyAr thiruvadigalE saranam Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest guest Report post Posted April 12, 2003 Sri Soundararajan, I believe that the first time this is encountered is in Tulsidas' Ramayan; although references to it can are also found in popular stories surrounding the sthala purAnam of Thirumalai, indicating that the story had been around long before this work. The need for a Maya Sita came about to assuage the pain of Sita's having to undergo agni pravEsham within minutes of her release from her long imprisonment. How else could one explain Rama's strange behaviour towards his wife, other than by simply saying that the woman who was rescued from Lanka was not his true wife? Using this example, it was believed that that the Maya Sita, who was the reincarnation of the sagely Vedavathi (who cursed Ravana for his advances towards her by cursing that a woman would cause his downfall) and who went through all the suffering, was the creation of agni dEvatha, who brought her to Panchavati to replace the real Sita just at the moment that Ravana was about to kidnap her. By entering the fire, the Maya Sita would return to her abode, and the real Sita, who had remained in the care of Agni all along, would be returned back to her Rama. Along with its lack of authenticity in light of Sri Valmiki Ramayana, this notion also dilutes the level of sacrifice and suffering that the Divine Couple had to endure in order to redeem not only the rishis of the forests, but the rAkshasas of Lanka, as well. By the way, the connection to Thirumalai was established by saying that Sri Rama, recognizing all the suffering and that Vedavathi/Maya Sita underwent for in Service to Him, consented to marry her in His future AvAthAram as Srinivasa. This is why the Lord has two consorts residing on His Chest. adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan Mohan - "vimalkumar ranganathan" <panardasan <ramanuja> Friday, April 11, 2003 3:29 PM Re: [ramanuja] SriRama > Sri: Sri Nappinnai, Thanks for the nice article. I had gone to the ISKCON temple for Sri Rama Navami yesterday, and according to Gaudiya Vaishnavism, the Sita that was kidnapped and incarcerated by Ravana was not the original Piratti, but Mayadevi. I would like to know from the adiyaars in this group, if they had ever heard of this version of the story of Lord Rama and if so, the origins of it, could it be Srimad Bhagavatham for GVs give maximum importance to SB?? Now, lets not attack the GVs in the process, they are another Vaishnava Sampradaya. I just thought that that piece of information was rather interesting to share it with the group, and want to know what the Adiyaars in this group think of the understanding of the GVs. Dasan, Kidambi Soundararajan > Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest guest Report post Posted April 12, 2003 Sri: Srimathe Ramanujaya nama: Srimad Vara Vara Munaye nama: Dear Soundararajan, Accept my pranams. To my knowledge,it is the "real" sita. If not Sri Vacana BhUShaNam.8 will become pointless and our entire sampradayam will break down! I strongly believe in the genius of Sri PiLLai lOkcArya. Anyways FYI,SVB.8: "pirAtti muRpadap pirindhadhu thannudaiya "krpayai/compassion" veLiyidugaikkAga; naduviR pirindhadhu "pArathanthryaththai/ subservience to the Lord" veLiyidugaikkAga; anantharam/later pirindhadhu "ananyArhathvaththai/exclusive dependence on the Lord" veLiyidugaikkAga". Another important thing you should know is that "sundara kANda" is the crown/heart of Srimad Valmiki Ramayana and it is packed with and rich in samskrt beauty and also love/devotion. The bhaktha Hanuman is the messenger between PerumAL and thAyAr. If one says that it was only "mAya" sita,then bhakti itself bcomes "mAya"! And leaving Sri Ramanuja sampradayam aside,all other vaiShNava sampradayams,which also believe in bhakti cult and those which claim that the "sita" who was abducted by Ravana was "mAyA",will lead to "self-contradiction". Do you catch this subtle point? I'm guessing why Gaudiya sampradayam considers the "sita" abducted by the Ravana as mAyA for the following reason: Their's is just a vaiShNava sampradayam and ours is "srivaiShNavism". Now back to explaining SVB 8: the three essential traits which ensure fruitful mediation by thAyAr/Divine Mother are 1. Compassion: for suffering masses,and hence the motive force to plead with the Lord for their salvation 2. Subservience:to the Lord so as to be able to compel the Lord's attention to her pleadings. 3. Exclusive Dependence: on the Lord,inclucating in Him,a sense of belonging and identity of interests with her. the above three traits were displayed by Sita,incarnation Sri Mahalakshmi,when thAyAr got separated from PerumAL thrice. Other devotees may enlighten you on this aspect in detail. Based on one's own "limited/unlimited" knowledge one can follow whatever one wants(if he/she happens to believe in free will). Personally I go by physics even in reliogious theory. So I consider a "religioius" theory perfect and complete if it can answer each and every aspect. Do not forget the fact that there are various versions of Srimad Valmiki Ramayana. AdikAvya by Sri Valmiki is the original/authentic and the one that comes closest to it is "kamba ramayanam" by Srikamban. So according to the AdikAya,it is not the "mAyA" sita but the "real" one. I hope bhAgavathAs will correct me if I am wrong. This is for your information: According to tulasi ramayanam,SriRama worshippd Siva in rameshvaram. Once I happened to listen to Sri HH's upanyAsam on Bhagavad Gita(some slokas). HH said that such an incidnc is not mentiond in Valmiki Ramayanam. On a different level,EmperumAnAr/Ramanuja(Rama+anuja= younger brother of Rama) learnt the esoteric meanings of Srimad Valmiki Ramayana from his maternal uncle Periya Tirumalai Nambi for an year. Emperumanar took it to his heart and implimented SriRama's dharmic system in the society but when it comes to his own personality he assumed the role of "sita". When Sriman Narayana/veda puruSha(puruSha in puruSha sUktham refers to none but Sriman Narayana) took the incarnation of SriRama, veda took the incarnation in the form of Srimad Valmiki Ramayana and "sita" is the truth. If someone says it is the "maya" sita,then it has the touch of Advaitham. Ravana didn't committ a grave sin compared to Kakasura (Jayantha who was Indra's son). So was that Sita also "mAyA" sita according to gaudiya sampradaya??? Even I attended the program at ISKCON and I have heard about the same story that you have mentioned. But I didn't see any point to discuss this issue. Because I'm very clear about my Ramanuja and hence I have strong conviction that my Ramanuja will take care of my knowledge of his sampradayam and also its implimentation. My long term goal is to write a book by connecting Modern Physics with Srivisishtadvaitam and Ramanuja Sampradayam. But Sriman Narayana has to shower His grace on me for that task to be fulfilled. One bhAgavatha(indian,initiated in ISKCON)quoted "SrirAma rAma rAmEthi" and said krishna nama is equal to 1000 namas. According to the Ishvara uvAca,it is only "Srirama" nama is equal to chanting 1000 namas and that too one should not take it literally. Sriman Narayana had made the life for some souls(who don't know samskrt and who suffer from other technical drawbacks)easier with SriRama nama. Shruthi is the authentic scripture and the rest(smrthi, epics,purAnAs etc)are secondary texts. All these secondary texts can be considered to be the truth/valid as long as they don't "conflict" with the shruthi. So finally according to the puruSha suktham(which appears in all the vedas),the puruSha/Sriman Narayana,is responsible for creation,sustentation and dissolution and hence every other name (Srirama,Srikrishna etc)are the avathAra of Sriman Narayana. In Rg veda,you will see worship being offered to different deities(there is no mention of srirama or srikrishna!)and it says agni is the lowest god and vishnu is the highest god. You being a guy,have more advantage than me,and hence can learn a lot to further your understanding. See if you can read the article "Worship your own;Respect all" by sri HH Chinna jeeyar in www.chinnajeeyar.org. Also if possible,listen to couple of or all gita jyothi discourses by Sri Chinna Jeeyar swami. This would help you tremendously. I'm not sure whether they have put the audio files on the web yet. PS:Everything is said in the spirit of knowledge and hence forgive any type of sins committed unintentionally. AzhvAr EmperumAnr JIyar thiruvadigaLE sharaNam NC Nppinnai Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest guest Report post Posted April 13, 2003 Srimathe Ramanujaya Namaha >If someone says it is the "maya" sita,then it has the touch of >Advaitham. I disagree to this to quite some extent. This is purely subjective and is based on the perspective. Once again, I guess, Shri Soundararajan has told us the story of the Gaudia Vaishanavas that he had heard, but, I guess he didn't tell us the intent behind or the audience that the Gaudia mutt targets at. Saying "maya" Sita may look like advaitic philosophy only if seen from the philosophical perspective. When it comes to philosophies, Ramayana/Mahabharatha are definitely referred to, but not to substantiate any hypothesis but only to assist, in the path of substantiating the appropriate hypothesis i.e it is easy to explain to people by explaining some examples, although, the hypothesis is being proved only from explanations that are profound in logic and would stand alone without these examples. I request someone to clearly post on what the Gaudia mutt has to say on this subject and I feel it is not right on our part to even analyse on this unless we understand the appropriate intent as this might immediately give a wrong impression about another tradition / school of thought. There are various levels of the audience/people to whom different philosphies are targeted at. A four year old boy would not understand if we say god manifests in five forms i.e para, vyuha, vibhava, archai and antharyami. We need to take him to the temple and say that lord looks like that and make him BELIEVE that. And then later on as he believes and then starts analysing, based on further learnings, that, there are different forms of the lord. As we all know, the buddhists(nastikas) were thrown out mostly by the advaitic philosophy (credits to Sankara) and the advaitic philosophy was left as it is pretty much to a large extent except for the places where Shri Ramanujar refuted Sankara/Bhaskra/Yadavaprakasa/Prabhakara incorrect/advaitic views. That is why he still called it as Advaitam, but a variant of it i.e Vichista-Advaitam. We say that, advaitam preserved the theism (There is a popular anecdote "advaitam protected the paddy from the stones"). And then Vichista-Advaitam preserved the original intent of the vedic scripts i.e the shareera-shariri bhava i.e the perfect explanation of the jeevatma/paramatma relationship and their appropriate swaroopams and hence popularly known by the phrase -"Vichistadvaitam protected the rice from the paddy". Probably the Gaudia mutt addresses the foreigners i.e non indians:) For them, it might probably make sense to propagate a good image of Sita, otherwise, people would suspect her purity up-front. For example, Valmiki clearly says that Ravana touched Sita and held her hair and grabbed her and took her away. But, Kamban does not say this. He does not want to project Sita as impure for the readers up- front. The intent is not to use his creativity and hide the historic event, but to make the appropriate message reach the appropriate audience. So people at the atheist level may have to go through these kind of things to first believe god exist or whatever and then as they believe they get more interested and try to find out the correct information and get into the next inner circle and so on and finally get into the innermost. For those who are already born and brought up with the Ramanuja Sampradaya, there is no need to even listen to any other sampradayam. For ex, I wouldn't even bother to attend a meeting/lecture from ANYONE else other than from those great leaders from our sampradayam and this is what, to my knowledge, is expected of every sincere follower of Shri Ramanuja Sampradayam and hence I don't even have to analyse on any other stories of other sampradayams. When such a question arises to whether those stories are right or not, the first thing that we need to ask ourselves is, do we understand our sampradayam at the first place? Did we try to learn it from an acharyan or at the least, read the books written by one of them? If not, dear devotees, let us start with that rather than even trying to analyze other sampradayams. As Smt Nappinnai rightly put it, we should start reading the articles posted by our leaders like Shri Chinna Jeeyar swami, Velukkudi swami and so on and stop listening to others until we complete our feat of learning our own sampradayam to the best extent possible. For us who are born and brought up in Shri RAmanuja Sampradayam this is all we need to follow: "Puruvacharyargal podham anuttanangal Kooruvar vaartthaigalai kondu neer theri Irul tharuma nyalatthe imbamuttru vaazhum Therul tharuma desikanai therndu" - Upadesa Rattina Malai Yatheendra Pravanam Vandhe RAMYA Jamataram Munim Adiyen Ramanuja Dasan, Lakshmi Narasimhan PS: BTW, I attended the Rama-Sita Thirukkalyana mahotsavam today (saturday) in the Lemont(Chicago) Shri Ramar Temple - that was based on the Shri Rama Navami. Thanks to the lord, for making me go there and giving me an oppurtunity to attend the entire function which was, to say the least, a wonderful treat for the eyes. I just cannot explain it in words, but for those who missed it, my regrets!! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest guest Report post Posted April 14, 2003 Sri: Srimathe Ramanujaya nama: > I disagree to this to quite some extent. This is purely subjective > and is based on the perspective. Once again, I guess, Shri > Soundararajan has told us the story of the Gaudia Vaishanavas that > he had heard, but, I guess he didn't tell us the intent behind or > the audience that the Gaudia mutt targets at. Saying "maya" Sita > may look like advaitic philosophy only if seen from the > philosophical perspective. When it comes to philosophies, > Ramayana/Mahabharatha Perception is true/real and so is this world. If one denies the existence of the "reality" then he belongs to the class of advaitin (he need not be an advaitin in strict sense). Anything that is not real is "pseudo". If it is not a "real" sita,then it is a pseudo/falso/imaginary sita. So I said "it" has the touch of advaitham in this context. As already pointed out by Sri SriRama quoting Sri Vacana BhUShaNam,the purpose of IthihAsAs and purANAs are only to elucidate the moot points in brahma kANda and even among the two it is only ithihAsAs which has a superior hold. Now the question comes "what does the veda teach?" If veda teaches the actual relationship between the Ishvara,sentient and non-sentient,then every other secondary texts(smrthi,ithihAsAs,purANAs)should support or atleast try to support that if not they(latter) have to be rejected. To me,the introduction of "mAyA" sita violates this very basic principle/thathvam. A lesser brain may be satisfied with such an answer but a brain which is hungry for real knowledge can not be satisfied with the answer as the answer is arbitrary and hence not unique. > I request someone to clearly post on what the Gaudia mutt has tosay > on this subject and I feel it is not right on our part to even > analyse on this unless we understand the appropriate intent as this > might immediately give a wrong impression about another tradition / > school of thought. I attended the program too and they played the drama but fortunately not this episode of mAyA sita. Otherwise I would have been the first person to question. I have read Sri Prabhpada's BG,tenth canto of Srimad BhAgavatham. In Gaudiya Vaishnavism(GV),Krishna is the SUpreme/brahman and everything else comes from Him. We chant hare rama hare krishna and they do the reverse because of this. The scripture they quote for this is brahma samhita which says that "there is no one greater than Krishna". You can refer to Prabhupada's own words(who is in the acaraya lineage in GV)BG X.2. page no 505. Again it is Sri Prabhupada's own words "chant this mahamanthram 16 rounds daily,follow the regulative principles and you will go back to Godhead/Krishna's abode". It is precisely for this "nama" sankIrthanam,they say that SisupAlA attained mOksham(you will see this explanation in the 10th canto of Srimad BhAgavatham). GV has taken ideas from other vaishnava cults like ours,and madhwa. BTW in the brahma sampradaya(starts from Lord Narayana), upto vyasadeva, the acaryas are same for both madhwas and gaudiyas after that it bifurcates into two separate sects namely madhwa and sukadeva (gaudiya) sect and Chainthanya mahaprabhu comes under Sukadeva. Recently I heard that Sri Prabhupada has even translated "mukunda mAlA" of our Sri KulashEkhara AzhvAr, which is a hit in ISKCON. > Probably the Gaudia mutt addresses the foreigners i.e non indians:) > For them, it might probably make sense to propagate a good image of > Sita, otherwise, people would suspect her purity up-front. For > example, Valmiki clearly says that Ravana touched Sita and held her > hair and grabbed her and took her away. But, Kamban does not say > this. He does not want to project Sita as impure for the readers up- > front. The intent is not to use his creativity and hide thehistoric > event, but to make the appropriate message reach the appropriate > audience. So people at the atheist level may have to go through > these kind of things to first believe god exist or whatever and > then as they believe they get more interested and try to find out > the correct information and get into the next inner circle and so > on and finally get into the innermost. It was Sri Prabhpada in 60's or 70's popularised the teachings in US. But GV was existing prior to this incidence. Foreigners came to our country and ruled but didn't take any of our religion. If Sri Prabhupada is a true disciple in the acarya lineage obviously the same reason must have been given by his predecessors too. If not "the disciplic succession" is broken and hence can not be claimed as "authentic". Sri Prabhupada can not introduce his own ideas to suit "some foreigners". Your point is not valid in the long run. SriRama couldn't change Ravana(otherwise there wouldn't have been a Ramayana), SriParthasarathy could not change the mind of duryOdhana (otherwise there would not have been a mahabharatha)and EmperumAnAr also could not change everybody. So let us not forget about "nirhetuka krpa" of the Lord. You can't change an atheist/agnostic/ theist(of higher intellect) by giving some "loose" reasoning. > For those who are already born and brought > up with the Ramanuja Sampradaya, there is no need to even listen to > any other sampradayam. For ex, I wouldn't even bother to attend a > meeting/lecture from ANYONE else other than from those greatleaders > from our sampradayam and this is what, to my knowledge, is expected > of every sincere follower of Shri Ramanuja Sampradayam and hence I > don't even have to analyse on any other stories of other > sampradayams. When such a question arises to whether those stories > are right or not, the first thing that we need to ask ourselves is, > do we understand our sampradayam at the first place? Did we try to > learn it from an acharyan or at the least, read the books written by > one of them? Some "non-genuine" gurus may not exhibit everything at the very first instance. I happened to meet one swamiji and he asked me if I were a devotee of Narayana and since I was ignorant about our sampradayam,I thought let me learn something. I attended couple of classes given by this swamiji but then he didn't like my questioning him and moreover I found out immediately(even though I didn't know much about the details of SriVisishtadvaitham)that he was teaching only advaitham. All I knew about BG was that the life line of BG lies in BG 18.66(my parents taught only this). The beauty is that swamiji didn't even say that he is talking about advaitham and he would quote a lot from skanda/linga purANAm(which are tamasic). If I give a talk/lecture, first I would tell the audience what the topic is and if it is not my own original idea I would mention the name of the proponent. When I didn't see this in that swamiji I was wondering what kind of knowledge is that. I found loopholes in the teachings and I bid goodbye. I was saved from the clutches of Advaitham because of EmperumAnAr's katAksham and PerumAL's anugraham. This incidence turned me to get into our sampradayam in full swing. You never know,GV may act as a catalyst for some(like Soundar) "already born into our sampradayam" to become a "true/genuine" follower of EmperumAnAr. > If not, dear devotees, let us start with that rather > than even trying to analyze other sampradayams. As Smt Nappinnai > rightly put it, we should start reading the articles posted by our > leaders like Shri Chinna Jeeyar swami, Velukkudi swami and so onand > stop listening to others until we complete our feat of learning our > own sampradayam to the best extent possible. > For us who are born and brought up in Shri RAmanuja Sampradayamthis > is all we need to follow: > "Puruvacharyargal podham anuttanangal > Kooruvar vaartthaigalai kondu neer theri > Irul tharuma nyalatthe imbamuttru vaazhum > Therul tharuma desikanai therndu" - Upadesa Rattina Malai Partly I agree and partly I disagree. If there are articles by our AcAryas on the web then we get benefitted. If not, sometimes this type of external philosophies help our own guys/gals(like me/soundar) to develop unfliching faith in our sampradayam. Just as you have accepted certain things(living abroad which is not mentioned in URM) as part and parcel of your life,you have to accept certain other things(reading books or association with people belonging to other cults) as well in the same spirit. If that bhagavAn really wants someone to get into our sampradayam,He will direct that person in the right path that is,the right AcArya. Knowledge can not dawn without the grace of AcArya. The URM you quoted will be taken care of automatically:-) > PS: BTW, I attended the Rama-Sita Thirukkalyana mahotsavam today > (saturday) in the Lemont(Chicago) Shri Ramar Temple - that wasbased > on the Shri Rama Navami. Thanks to the lord, for making me go there > and giving me an oppurtunity to attend the entire function which > was,to say the least, a wonderful treat for the eyes. I just cannot > explain it in words, but for those who missed it, my regrets!! You should have thought of Sri KUraththAzhvAn(prayed for nAlUrAn) and prayed to PerumAL that whatever feast you experienced that other saha bhAgavthAs(with j~nAnak kaN)also sould experience the same instead of expressing your regrets:-) AzhvAr EmperumAnAr JIyar thiruvadigaLE sharaNam NC Nappinnai Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest guest Report post Posted April 14, 2003 Srimathe Ramanujaya Namaha Due to the length of the post, I would keep this short and will pursue this post in private with you. But I have few things to explain though: > If it is not a "real" sita,then it is a pseudo/falso/imaginary > sita. So I said "it" has the touch of advaitham in this context. This is completely wrong. Lord played in such a way in the Krishnavatharam with Kamsan. The actual lord was taken out by vasudeva and the maya was brought in. How did this happen? "Maya" does exist. The concept of advaitam is regarding the entire universe being treated as the MAYA. This is completely different from the Loka Maya who, is an amsam of the Lord, who DO EXIST and we are all in the leela vibhuthi due to a significant contribution from her. We do see illusions and hence percpetion is not reality. But, reality as is exist. What we perceive may or may not be reality and hence perception need not be the same as reality. If you bring in the concept of perception is reality then you are unknowingly advocating the atheist perspective i.e we don't perceive god and hence he does not exist. Gaudia concept of Sita is different for some reason. That is the bottom line. We don't need to accept them as authentic and in fact that is what I said. But, your post seem completely self contradictory. > If not "the disciplic succession" is broken and hence can not be > claimed as "authentic". Sri Prabhupada can not introduce his own > ideas to suit "some foreigners". If this were the case, why are we even discussing their school of thought? >...AcAryas on the web then we get benefitted. If not, sometimes this > type of external philosophies help our own guys/gals(like > me/soundar) to develop unfliching faith in our sampradayam. This statement conflicts with the first previous one. If you stick to Shri Ramanuja sampradayam, you don't have to go anywhere else. If you are not, then you need to get information from other places. Without understanding either one completely, how will you know which one is right? It is not a good practice to evaluate all the theories at the same time. In US they have a famous saying:) How do you eat an elephant - ONE BITE AT A TIME... Either one must completely follow Gaudia or Shri Ramanuja sampradayam. Bottomline is the faith in a sampradayam that will automatically take us to the next inner circle of higher knowledge. > Sri Prabhupada can not introduce his own ideas to suit "some > foreigners". Right! But, when will you know this? Only when you know the Ramanuja Sampradayam completely. Remember, this could be used against even our sampradayam from a logical perspective. People who do not have faith in our sampradayam might say that Shri Ramanuja introduced his own ideas to suit "some south indians". So, this would end up only with an argument and not with a solution. Whatever sampradayam one wants to follow, one must stick to that. On one side you say that external philosophies help you in having more faith on the sampradayam and on the other side you are saying that those external sampradayams are not "authentic". I don't see a point. My point was that, if another philosophy is wrong, so be it. We do not need to make fun of that or speak wrong of them. But, if someone who follows that philosphy raises a question against our sampradayam, then we would have to be prepared to explain it based on our purvacharya granthams. That is why our philosophy still stays as it had been for zillions of years. We don't go and preach. We don't convert. When people come to our acharyas by bhagavan's krupai, they take over. "avar avar thamathamadhu arivari vagai vagai avar avar irayavar ena adi adaivargal avar avar irayavar KURAIVILAR irayavar avar avar VIDHIVAZHI adaya nindranare" - Nammazhwar. > You should have thought of Sri KUraththAzhvAn(prayed for nAlUrAn) > and prayed to PerumAL that whatever feast you experienced that > other saha bhAgavthAs(with j~nAnak kaN)also sould experience the > same instead of expressing your regrets:-) Last but not the least, I did pray the lord for everyone, but it has no relevance to my statement "my regrets for those who missed it" because, what one missed stays as it is - "Kariyavanai kaanaadha kan enna kanne, kan imaitthu kanbar tham kan enna kanne". I requested couple of my friends to attend this function that is a rare oppurtunity, but they gave some lame excuses. So, what one missed is what it is:) I still have my regrets, but I never meant that I have an edge over others by attending the festival. In fact, I have requested one of my friends to scan the pictures he had taken so that I could post the same to this group:) Will continue the discussion in private:) Yatheendra Pravanam Vandhe RAMYA Jamataram Munim Adiyen Ramanuja Dasan, Lakshmi Narasimhan Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest guest Report post Posted April 14, 2003 Sri Narasimhan, I went over your mail. You say that it is important and necessary to stick to one's sampradayam. Well, although I agree to that, I would like to point out the danger in bindly following so. To be human is to question. Question anything and everything!! "Why are we here?? what am I doing here?? This family of mine, are they eternal?? what happens to me after death?? what is God?? What is my relationship with him?? Why is there soo much suffering in the world?? Why am I suffering...?? and on and on........ Even though one is born a SriVaishnava, it doesn't qualify him to be any special. Well, in a sense, yes, but lets not get into that. Let me not remind you of the present day condition of SriVaishnavism. Temples being dilapidated and uncared for, people going after materialistic pursuits like anything, ofcourse lets not forget the meat-eating, smoking, drinking Iyengars. Why did we deteriorate?? What happened?? The answer is simple. We stopped questioning. Our religion has become ritualistic. We have nobody preaching to us about the greatness of our SV religion. All our elders are caught in the "Cricket fever" or busy comparing their material status with their kin (my Grandson is in the US!! My daughter is going to Singapore for a vacation!!), with totally no idea of the doctrines of Sri Ramanujar or MM or even forget the concept of Prapatti, my cousins don't even know who their acarya is!! (Let me add this: one of the Bhattar at Sri PArthasArathy Temple chants, "Om Sankaraya namah" for "Om SaNkarshanAya Namah") Let me get personal. I am born in a Thenkalai Iyengar family. Kidambi Vamsam. None of my relatives, be it my dad's side or my mom's side know anything about SriVaishnavism. Zilch, nada. Well, we can't blame them as well, it is a struggle to make a good living in the modern period. But nobody has even thought about devoting a little bit of their time or effort for the sake of "soul search" or learning about the Sampradaya. Well, I used to have the "Chichi" on, thanks to my dad, who'd forcefully make me wear the chichi mark on my forehead. That too stopped when I started growing up. I became a hardcore atheist. I hated God for the concept of death, the miseries that mankind suffers, what kind of a god will punish people?? I hated God. But I tell you what, those were not happy days. Once, I happened to meet some Gaudiya Vaishnavas. I spoke to them for more than 1 hour, and their conviction and faith and logic was unbelievable!! And mind you, they are devoted to the same perumal that the SVs are!! Also, the greatest advantage of the GVs is their books. Awesome books, which just explain even the highest Vaishnava philosophy like spoonfeeding. Books like, "Science of Self discovery", "Perfect Questions Perfect Answers" etc, and ofcourse the famous "Bhagavad Gita as it is". Even to this day if you realize, ISKCON books are the best to attract ANYONE (be him westerner, Indian, whatever) to the Vaishnava fold. We cannot discredit the achievements of Srila Prabhupada, the founder of ISKCON. Amazing books, well we might differ philosophically at the fundamental level, but still his books only increases one's convicion and love for Perumal (be it KRishna or Rama or NArAyaNa, perumal is perumal). Well, in my case my love for the 4000 has made me stick on to the TK sampradaya. But think of the innumerable westerners or even the "non-Iyengars", who are not born in the SV fold, isn't ISKCON the best thing that could happen to them??I am a TK today, I love Ramanujar and MM today, MAINLY BECAUSE OF ISKCON. I can give it in writing. They might differ from us philosophically, but they celebrate Sri Ramanujar's Apperance day every year by visiting SriPerumbudur, none of my relatives have ever cared for his ThirunNakshathiram. Being loyal to one's Sampradaya is laudable indeed, but it becomes dangerous when one starts to belittle other sampradayas. I got a book called "A dialogue on Hinduism" by a SV scholar. With all due respects to him, I could not even proceed after 5 pages. It lacks the simplicity of any of ISKCON's books. Infact if you conduct a poll among all the SVs in the US who are interested in their Sampradayam, I can say that more than 80% will thank ISKCON for helping them understand their Sampradaya. Believe me, I myself know of many such cases. With respect to Sri Sita as being "Maya" or Real, I just intented to know about the difference in philosophies, not to belittle one or the other. Kindly forgive me if I had said anything thats appears offensive to your kind, blessed self. Dasan, Kidambi Soundararajan. Lakshmi Narasimhan <nrusimhan wrote:Srimathe Ramanujaya Namaha >If someone says it is the "maya" sita,then it has the touch of >Advaitham. I disagree to this to quite some extent. This is purely subjective and is based on the perspective. Once again, I guess, Shri Soundararajan has told us the story of the Gaudia Vaishanavas that he had heard, but, I guess he didn't tell us the intent behind or the audience that the Gaudia mutt targets at. Saying "maya" Sita may look like advaitic philosophy only if seen from the philosophical perspective. When it comes to philosophies, Ramayana/Mahabharatha are definitely referred to, but not to substantiate any hypothesis but only to assist, in the path of substantiating the appropriate hypothesis i.e it is easy to explain to people by explaining some examples, although, the hypothesis is being proved only from explanations that are profound in logic and would stand alone without these examples. I request someone to clearly post on what the Gaudia mutt has to say on this subject and I feel it is not right on our part to even analyse on this unless we understand the appropriate intent as this might immediately give a wrong impression about another tradition / school of thought. There are various levels of the audience/people to whom different philosphies are targeted at. A four year old boy would not understand if we say god manifests in five forms i.e para, vyuha, vibhava, archai and antharyami. We need to take him to the temple and say that lord looks like that and make him BELIEVE that. And then later on as he believes and then starts analysing, based on further learnings, that, there are different forms of the lord. As we all know, the buddhists(nastikas) were thrown out mostly by the advaitic philosophy (credits to Sankara) and the advaitic philosophy was left as it is pretty much to a large extent except for the places where Shri Ramanujar refuted Sankara/Bhaskra/Yadavaprakasa/Prabhakara incorrect/advaitic views. That is why he still called it as Advaitam, but a variant of it i.e Vichista-Advaitam. We say that, advaitam preserved the theism (There is a popular anecdote "advaitam protected the paddy from the stones"). And then Vichista-Advaitam preserved the original intent of the vedic scripts i.e the shareera-shariri bhava i.e the perfect explanation of the jeevatma/paramatma relationship and their appropriate swaroopams and hence popularly known by the phrase -"Vichistadvaitam protected the rice from the paddy". Probably the Gaudia mutt addresses the foreigners i.e non indians:) For them, it might probably make sense to propagate a good image of Sita, otherwise, people would suspect her purity up-front. For example, Valmiki clearly says that Ravana touched Sita and held her hair and grabbed her and took her away. But, Kamban does not say this. He does not want to project Sita as impure for the readers up- front. The intent is not to use his creativity and hide the historic event, but to make the appropriate message reach the appropriate audience. So people at the atheist level may have to go through these kind of things to first believe god exist or whatever and then as they believe they get more interested and try to find out the correct information and get into the next inner circle and so on and finally get into the innermost. For those who are already born and brought up with the Ramanuja Sampradaya, there is no need to even listen to any other sampradayam. For ex, I wouldn't even bother to attend a meeting/lecture from ANYONE else other than from those great leaders from our sampradayam and this is what, to my knowledge, is expected of every sincere follower of Shri Ramanuja Sampradayam and hence I don't even have to analyse on any other stories of other sampradayams. When such a question arises to whether those stories are right or not, the first thing that we need to ask ourselves is, do we understand our sampradayam at the first place? Did we try to learn it from an acharyan or at the least, read the books written by one of them? If not, dear devotees, let us start with that rather than even trying to analyze other sampradayams. As Smt Nappinnai rightly put it, we should start reading the articles posted by our leaders like Shri Chinna Jeeyar swami, Velukkudi swami and so on and stop listening to others until we complete our feat of learning our own sampradayam to the best extent possible. For us who are born and brought up in Shri RAmanuja Sampradayam this is all we need to follow: "Puruvacharyargal podham anuttanangal Kooruvar vaartthaigalai kondu neer theri Irul tharuma nyalatthe imbamuttru vaazhum Therul tharuma desikanai therndu" - Upadesa Rattina Malai Yatheendra Pravanam Vandhe RAMYA Jamataram Munim Adiyen Ramanuja Dasan, Lakshmi Narasimhan PS: BTW, I attended the Rama-Sita Thirukkalyana mahotsavam today (saturday) in the Lemont(Chicago) Shri Ramar Temple - that was based on the Shri Rama Navami. Thanks to the lord, for making me go there and giving me an oppurtunity to attend the entire function which was, to say the least, a wonderful treat for the eyes. I just cannot explain it in words, but for those who missed it, my regrets!! Sponsor azhwAr emberumAnAr jeeyAr thiruvadigalE saranam Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest guest Report post Posted April 15, 2003 Sri: Srimathe Ramanujaya nama: Dear Lakshmi Narasimhan, Accept my pranams. I am of the opinion that Ramanuja sampradayam is not only a philosophical theory but also a practical one. But if someone says that Ramanuja sampradaya is "only" for "knowledge" purpose but when it comes to practise one strictly has to go by varNAshrama,I regret to say that I don't buy such statements. We seem to disagree along these lines. And I personally have come across iyengars(TK and AcArya puruSha family! and VK's are not excluded)who are experts in making "buttering" statements with regard to Ramanuja sampradayam on one side and varNAshrama on the other side. But I believe in AH 85. With whatever little knowledge I have,of our sampradayam, I try to practise. You seem to be an expert in reading in between the lines(in fractions and continued fractions)of my post. I do not think it is worth to continue this discussion of "mAyA" sita further or posts related to "mAyA" in the sense of ShankarAcArya and I'm closing this topic from my side. Everybody is entitled to stick to his/her own views about it and follow whatever sampradayam one/Lord wants. I am only interested in learning about our sampradayam from a person who practises what he teaches/preaches. AzhvAr EmperumAnAr JIyar thiruvadigaLE sharaNam NC Nappinnai Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
