RE: Vishnu and Shiva (To Narasimha-jI)

[Guest guest]

>

> Narasimha P.V.R. Rao [pvr]

> Tuesday, April 29, 2003 11:40 AM

 

Dear Narasimha-jI,

 

> Though your mail was quite long and contained many

quotes, a lot of it

> is questionable and dry mimamsa.

 

I hope you will cover why you consider all that to be

questionable and 'dry mImAmsa' in a detailed

rejoinder. A declaration that it is dry mImAmsa or

shuShka-tarka is not quite the same as actually

proving it. My experience has been that such labelling

is quick to happen when one realizes the lack of

defense for one's baises. I know that it will be

different with you.

 

> The crux of the mail are the following two points:

 

No, you missed it. Shruti says that (i) Vishnu is

supreme and (ii) devatas, other than Vishnu, have

flaws. So, others cannot be equal to Him, cannot be a

different form of Him. The authority of Puranas comes

from their being aligned to shruti. They lose their

authority if they contradict shruti. Same with Itihasa

and Smritis, kalpa sutras and any vedAnga. And tAmasic

purANas (rather tAmasic portions) do just that.

 

You will need to prove that shruti does NOT say

whatever I had said. Points to note then are (i) Just

giving a shruti that praises Rudra as Lord of All etc

is not going to help your case (refer to the example I

had given) and (ii) one should tell how one should

interpret texts that hold Brahma, Rudra and others to

be under the control of Lakshmi and (iii) show texts

that assigns some flaws OR birth/death to Vishnu.

 

I hope you will do more than just remark that such

interpretations are dry mImAmsa or whatever.

 

> > The problem can be solved in a simpler way:

atleast

> > one of them is wrong.

>

> Now the car of our discussion has entered the

dead-end on the road of

> logic. We now have to get off the

> car and have to do the walk of introspection through

the woods of intelligence.

 

That is another point you have missed. I have not used

logic. On the other hand, you did, in the course of

solving the problem by equating both Shiva and Vishnu

to infinity.

 

Let's see: We are both faced with the problem of some

texts praising Shiva to be greater than Vishnu, some

holding them to be same and some holding Vishnu to be

greater than Shiva.

 

Your approach: All are correct (you don't mean this

though you say it), both are infinity, so it is OK to

say infinity is less than/greater than/equal to

infinity.

 

My approach: There is a guideline in the Puranas as to

how to handle these contradictions. Your objections to

these are actually objections to the Puranas

themselves. (Not that your objections are dismissed

JUST on that basis).

 

It is clear, atleast to me, my approach is faithful to

the Puranas while you are superimposing yours on the

Puranas.

 

> It is simply unacceptable to me to think that one of

them is wrong.

> Instead, any explanation that allows all of them to

be correct simultaneously

> without contradiction is the "simpler way" to me.

Considering Vishnu and Shiva

> to be different forms of the same supreme Brahman,

considering them to be

> incomparable (and hence considering each as

superior),

 

There lies the self-contradiction. They are

incomparable and are yet to superior to each other?

Even Maths would disagree with you: if there are two

infinites, question of whether they are greater than

or lesser than simply does not arise. This is why,

though you claim that your interpretation makes all of

them correct, it is not so. The solution is not just

self-contradictory, but renders those purANas that

make either of them to be superior to the other as

plain false. I find it very puzzling that a person

such as you with a solid background in Maths does not

find the idea of infinity being lesser than or greater

than infinity, repelling enough!!!

 

I hope you are not accepting illogical stuff under the

banner of mysticism.

 

> considering Vishnu to have come from Shiva and Shiva

to have come from

> Vishnu and yet both to have no beginning or end is a

"simpler way" to

> resolve the contradiction to me than

 

But the solution has not resolved any thing, instead

made 2/3 (assuming an uniform distribution, which is

not true) of the Puranas wrong.

 

> to assume that some puranas Vyasa wrote are "wrong".

 

That is another point missed. Puranas are anAdi.

Disagreeing is against the traditional as well as

Puranic view itself (I can get some references if you

want). Sri Vedavyasa classified one single purana into

18.

 

> > That makes the whole thing easier: Some texts are

> > tAmasic. The stuff therein has to be ignored.

> >

> > This position, being based on support from shruti

and actual purANic

> > quotes is better than your (incorrect)

>

> Firstly, this is all going back to my original

misgiving. The

> prejudice against tamas (the most stable

> state of zero passion) is all too evident.

 

But it appears to be your prejudice or some notion

about tamas being whatever. Can you pls quote a text

that equates tamas as the most stable state ... ?

There are literally thousands of passages in the

literature that equates tamas with something to be

avoided; yes, even the tamo prakriti guNa.

 

> Secondly, if I am told to think that Vyasa wrote

several books to

> "delude" some people, why can't I

> instead think that the few stanzas that make that

proposal were actually written to delude some other

people

> and not the whole books as proposed? Don't you think

that would be a much simpler hypothesis?!

 

The following can be noted:

 

A. The few stanzas do not render 'whole books' invalid

as you have made out to be. It is not even that these

verses were 'written' later to clean up the first set

of works (as you said in some other reply).

 

B. If simpler hypothesis that these few verses are

delusory appeals to you, it implies that you have no

problems with the basic idea of delusion. In which

case, why impose one's biases and predilections on the

scriptures and not take the purANas as they stand (esp

when doing so does not contradict stronger pramANa:

shruti)?

 

C. Vyasa is not the AUTHOR of puranas. He has

classified them. Puranas testify that. So, the

question of 'how can the kind Vyasa do THAT' does not

arise? In any case, Vyasa should be accused of

cheating or whatever if he did not tell all readers

that some of them should not be taken; hardly the

case. Consider this: The initial chapters of the

lectures on Physics by Feynman (actually nearly the

first volume itself) speaks in terms of classical

mechanics. If one were to read just that and conclude

that it is true, what would you tell him? Moreover,

Sri Vedavyasa's compassion cannot be doubted because

of all this. Stretching your expectations a bit, one

would expect that he writes purANas in all languages,

ensures that copies are available everywhere etc.

 

D. Our literature is full of pUrvapaksha and siddhAnta

(take any commentary on the Brahmasutra or any sUtras

or any text; perhaps even the Brihadaranyaka

Upanishad). Purvapaksha is a part of the text. If a

reader confuses pUrvapaksha to be the siddhAnta, it is

not the fault of author. Purvapaksha is anyway needed

to clarify the need of siddhAnta. The same thing has

been followed in purAnas. Those NOT extolling Vishnu

are Purvapaksha (rajasika, tAmasic). Those that do are

siddhAnta.

 

G. You are uncomfortable with the delusion stuff,

perhaps because you are uncomfortable with the idea of

tAmasa. That is very surprising! I'd suggest you read

the Mahabharata, Gita (17th and 18th chapters in

particular), Ishavasya Upanishad etc. That somebody

can become deluded is not something extraneous of

Vedanta. Consider the Indra-virochana episode in

Chandogya. Virochana is eternally deluded over there.

 

> Bottomline: The difference between you and me is

very small, compared

> to the difference between me and

> those who criticized Sanjay ji for "recommending the

worship of demigods", ostracized Sri Achyutananda Dasa

 

> for "worshipping Shakti" and criticized the recital

of Rudra Chamakam.

 

I don't know the history out there. Actually it does

not matter. If you can actually refute the points I

have raised, using scriptures, it will be the best;

you know, it is easy to superimpose one's ideas into

the purANAs or scriptures. So far, you have only

provided your personal preferences or theories that

you are comfortable with, instead of accepting

scriptures as they are.

 

Finally this quote from Mahabharata (ashvamedha parva,

Bhishma says this):

 

AloDhya sarvashAstrANi vichArya ca punaH punaH |

idamekaM suniShpannaM dhyeyo nArAyaNaH sadA ||

 

Regards,

Nomadeva

 

 

 

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