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Madhva-Gaudiya parampara

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Now this is interesting.

 

Sonic, you previously chided me for considering you to be a Gaudiya Vaishnava and taking anything you said about Gaudiya Vaishnavism seriously.

 

Now here you are, despite not being a Gaudiya Vaishnava, telling someone else that he is not a representative of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Logically, that requires that you know what Gaudiya Vaishnavism is.

 

Are you or are you not a Gaudiya Vaishnava?

 

Also, who is your Gaudiya Vaishnava guru from whom you took initiation?

 

Please, no verbose and evasive tirades against Hinduism or mayavada. Just answer these two very simple questions so that we can all understand where you are coming from.

 

I was formally initiated in ISKCON as a disciple of Srila Prabhupada during the Prabhupada era when he was still present amongst us.

 

However, Srila Prabhupada instructed that devotees should in fact not refer to themselves as devotees or disciples but simply as servants.

 

I do not consider myself fit to be called a devotee, disciple or servant, so I write and speak from the position of a student, not any sort of saintly person or disciple.

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Well, that is your speculation, because in the Saraswata lineage of Bhaktivinoda it is said that Bhaktivinoda found the text in his search around Bengal for the text.

It has never been claimed by the Saraswatas that Bhaktivinoda wrote the book like a novel.

He discovered the text in some library or in the possession of some Brahmana.

 

 

Nobody has referenced this Upanishad in the 2000 years of very extensive writing about Vedic literature, not even the Goswamis who spent years on research trying to substantiate Lord Caitanya as yuga-avatara. Also, the language it is written in suggests a modern source, and is similar to other writings of Srila Bhaktivinoda.

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SA Shivaisaid that they would take form and be born in the Bharadwaaja Gothra (lineage) thrice: Shiva alone as Shirdi Sai Baba, Shiva and Shakthi together at Puttaparthi as Sathya Sai Baba and Shakthi alone as Prema Sai, later." (Sathya Sai Speaks, III, 15:91, 6 July 1963)

"Rama and Krishna and Sai Baba appear different because of the dress each has donned, but it is the Self-same Entity, believe Me." (SSS, II, 18:92)

Hes had two opinions here also.

I think he said rama and krishna because he beliees him and shiva to be same.

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Nobody has referenced this Upanishad in the 2000 years of very extensive writing about Vedic literature, not even the Goswamis who spent years on research trying to substantiate Lord Caitanya as yuga-avatara. Also, the language it is written in suggests a modern source, and is similar to other writings of Srila Bhaktivinoda.

There are several Upanisads associated with Atharva Veda that only became known centuries after the dating of the Atharva Veda.

The Caitanya Upanisad might have it's appearance by and through some Vaishnava rishi in the period just after the period of Mahaprabhu and the Goswamis, but according to the Saraswata tradition it was not Bhaktivinoda, who simply discovered the text after a search when he had been requested by some Vaishnavas in Bengal to comment on the text.

 

There is no law or rule that new Upanisads cannot be discovered by self-realized rishis. It might in fact be an Upanisad that was only known on higher planets until a Vaishnava rishi in the lineage of Mahaprabhu was given the verses through yogic trance while visiting another planet.

 

Bhaktivinoda was in fact an admitted space traveler.

He had that mystic perfection.

He very well could have brought the text back down from a higher realm.

 

That is the difference between a siddha mahatma like Bhaktivinoda and a sahajiya pretender like the mental midgets who think they are in a position to condescend upon Bhaktivinoda Thakur.

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There are several Upanisads associated with Atharva Veda that only became known centuries after the dating of the Atharva Veda.

The Caitanya Upanisad might have it's appearance by and through some Vaishnava rishi in the period just after the period of Mahaprabhu and the Goswamis, but according to the Saraswata tradition it was not Bhaktivinoda, who simply discovered the text after a search when he had been requested by some Vaishnavas in Bengal to comment on the text.

 

There is no law or rule that new Upanisads cannot be discovered by self-realized rishis. It might in fact be an Upanisad that was only known on higher planets until a Vaishnava rishi in the lineage of Mahaprabhu was given the verses through yogic trance while visiting another planet.

 

Bhaktivinoda was in fact an admitted space traveler.

He had that mystic perfection.

He very well could have brought the text back down from a higher realm.

 

That is the difference between a siddha mahatma like Bhaktivinoda and a sahajiya pretender like the mental midgets who think they are in a position to condescend upon Bhaktivinoda Thakur.

 

If there`s no clear successor to His Divine Grace AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada from the parampara system, then we might as well follow the alternative in Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, Founder- President Acharya, Sri Caitanya Saraswat Math ( http://www.scsmath.com/)

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There are several Upanisads associated with Atharva Veda that only became known centuries after the dating of the Atharva Veda.

 

None of them are considered authentic except perhaps by some small sections.

 

 

There is no law or rule that new Upanisads cannot be discovered by self-realized rishis.

Sruti is considered a closed canon in Kali-yuga - or more accurately, after the time of Vyasa. No self-realized Rishi of our times can add to it and no one has.

 

 

Bhaktivinoda was in fact an admitted space traveler.

He had that mystic perfection.

He very well could have brought the text back down from a higher realm.

 

Except, he did not. The story I heard was he found a written copy ( in Bengali, I believe) somewhere in or around Bengal. If this is corrrect - then regardless of his ability to travel in space - the discovery of this Upanishad was a very earthly process.

 

 

That is the difference between a siddha mahatma like Bhaktivinoda and a sahajiya pretender like the mental midgets who think they are in a position to condescend upon Bhaktivinoda Thakur.

 

If you mean space travel, then I agree. You left out his ability for time travel, which is even more cooler. His travel back in time to the 13th century AD to see Chaitanya (16th century) who had also traveled back in time - at the exact same instant - to the 13th century to appear in Madhva's dreams and make him cry, is simply unbeatable. I mean, what are the odds of a 16th century guy and a 19th century guy, both traveling back to the dreams of a 13th century guy, at the same time?

 

There have been many tales in the past and there will be many in future, but hardly any that can match up to these incidents of Bhakti Vinoda's time travel. If people can believe in these stories, then they should have no trouble believing in just any story.

 

Cheers

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None of them are considered authentic except perhaps by some small sections.

 

 

Sruti is considered a closed canon in Kali-yuga - or more accurately, after the time of Vyasa. No self-realized Rishi of our times can add to it and no one has.

Cheers

 

Considered a closed canon by whom?

You have made a claim, now please tell us where Vyasadeva has closed the canon to future rishis.

Who has the authority to say that self-realized rishis cannot find and reveal any Vedic knowledge contained in the universe?

 

You say the canon is closed, but that is just your opinion and you have no authoritative reference to support that.

 

Bhaktivinoda manifested a number of revelations such as found in his Jaiva Dharma and Navadvip Dhama Mahatmya.

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Bhaktivinoda was in fact an admitted space traveler.

He had that mystic perfection.

He very well could have brought the text back down from a higher realm.

 

 

And where does Bhaktivinoda admit that? And how do we know it is not a made up story?

 

Bhaktivinoda used fiction in his writings all the time. Jaiva Dharma is a fictitious dialogue - the fiction part does not detract from it's philosophical or doctrinal value but the book itself is not a 'shastric proof' of anything.

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Considered a closed canon by whom?

You have made a claim, now please tell us where Vyasadeva has closed the canon to future rishis.

 

Good question. I cannot think of any proof beyond historical trends, but there is something I am trying to recall. I will post it, if I can remember it. If not, then I cannot prove it.

 

Cheers

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Considered a closed canon by whom?

You have made a claim, now please tell us where Vyasadeva has closed the canon to future rishis.

Who has the authority to say that self-realized rishis cannot find and reveal any Vedic knowledge contained in the universe?

 

 

Even Madhvacarya did not make a claim that his writing is to be accepted as shastra or some divine revelation. His writing is merely a commentary to the shastra. That is the difference between Madhvas and the Gaudiyas, who claim to represent Madhva sampradaya.

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I was formally initiated in ISKCON as a disciple of Srila Prabhupada during the Prabhupada era when he was still present amongst us.

 

Thank you for clarifying.

 

 

However, Srila Prabhupada instructed that devotees should in fact not refer to themselves as devotees or disciples but simply as servants.

 

I do not consider myself fit to be called a devotee, disciple or servant, so I write and speak from the position of a student, not any sort of saintly person or disciple.

 

If you are trying to speak from the position of a student, you are not doing a very good job of it. Most of what you have been doing on these forums has consisted of teaching rather than learning. Even your teaching leaves something to be desired, since you have consistently been hostile to just about every viewpoint that does not match your own, and have shown disinterest in examining facts or evidence and assessing ideas on their merits.

 

But anyway, your definition of "student" might be different from the standard English dictionary. It is strange to me that on one hand you say you are a student of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, yet you attack the credibility of other Gaudiya Vaishnavas because they do not to your views.

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Even Madhvacarya did not make a claim that his writing is to be accepted as shastra or some divine revelation. His writing is merely a commentary to the shastra. That is the difference between Madhvas and the Gaudiyas, who claim to represent Madhva sampradaya.

The Gaudiyas don't claim anything except that Mahaprabhu took diksha from Isvara Puri who was the disciple of Madhvendra Puri who himself came in the Tattvavadi line but himself was the sprout of the tree of Krishna-prema.

 

Śrī Mādhavendra Purī, also known as Śrī Mādhava Purī, belonged to the disciplic succession from Madhvācārya and was a greatly celebrated sannyāsī. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was the third disciplic descendant from Śrī Mādhavendra Purī. The process of worship in the disciplic succession of Madhvācārya was full of ritualistic ceremonies, with hardly a sign of love of Godhead. Śrī Mādhavendra Purī was the first person in that disciplic succession to exhibit the symptoms of love of Godhead and the first to write a poem beginning with the words ayi dīna-dayārdra nātha, "O supremely merciful Personality of Godhead." In that poem is the seed of Caitanya Mahāprabhu's cultivation of love of Godhead.

 

So, why is it that the critics don't assail Madhavendra Puri instead of Mahaprabhu?

In the Madhva sect as Mahaprabhu was initiated into in the line of Madhavendra Puri, the advance over the Tattvavadi siddhanta had already been initiated by Madhavendra Puri.

 

It was not Mahaprabhu who first took the Madhva sampradaya into new frontiers.

It was Madhavendra Puri.

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It is certainly not necessary to fabricate evidence for the sake of preaching. Why does it happen? Because some people passionately believe in something, and want others to believe in it as well. It is very human. And deifying their acharyas is not just a problem for Gaudiyas. The followers often want to see their guru elevated to the most divine platform possible. And that is human as well.

 

Prior to Gaudiyas, I have not heard of so much emphasis on a fabricated scripture that deifies the acharya. Of course, Ramanuja followers believe that Ramanuja is an incarnation of Adi Sesha. But this isn't emphasized, and it is not offered as any sort of rationalization for his philosophy. Tattvavadis consider Madhva to be an incarnation of Vayu (he himself also made this claim). But again, this isn't emphasized or required to believe in Tattvavada.

 

Now pardon me for saying this, as I intend no disrespect for your tradition, but there is a world of difference between writing something that is obviously a fiction vs writing a fiction and passing it off as an unauthored text. Upanishads are unauthored texts. Being part of the Veda, they enjoy the same authority as the Vedas. The whole point of referring to shruti is that everyone accepts the shruti as authority, because in all paramparas we still see that the shrutis are still being passed down in oral tradition. Now, it should be obvious why an obscure so-called shruti that is only known to one parampara cannot be reliable as evidence. The point is, if Chaithanya Upanishad is a real shruti but is only known to one parampara, then its authority is irrelevant, since no one else can verify its authenticity. This is unlike, say, the IshAvAsya upanishad, which all sampradayas have. If you quote from IshAvAsya upanishad to say, an Advaitin, he has to accept the evidence and either accept your interpretation or be able to offer a better interpretation. But he cannot simply ignore it, because IshAvAsya is known to be genuine across different sampradayas. The same is not true of Chaithanya Upanishad.

 

In the more likely scenario where Bhaktivinod actually "wrote" this Upanishad, the question that is raised is how such outright duplicity can be considered acceptable in the propagation of one's sampradaya. To the best of my knowledge, Bhaktivinod did not claim he was writing it. The text was being passed off as a genuine Upanishad. If he had written about Chaithanya as a drama or some such thing, there would be no issues. But he wrote it as if it were an Upanishad, meaning he wanted us to accept that it was a part of the eternal, unauthored corpus of Vedic texts. I'm sorry to have to say this, but that comes across as bad scholarship and makes it difficult for one to trust anything he says, however many other good qualities he may have.

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Śrī Mādhavendra Purī, also known as Śrī Mādhava Purī, belonged to the disciplic succession from Madhvācārya and was a greatly celebrated sannyāsī.

 

He was "greatly celebrated," and yet there is no record of him in the mAdhva mathas.

 

 

The process of worship in the disciplic succession of Madhvācārya was full of ritualistic ceremonies, with hardly a sign of love of Godhead.

 

This is nothing more than sectarian propaganda invented by Gaudiyas to rationalize their differences with mAdhvas. I think you and I both know that you have *no* *basis* at all for your prejudiced remark to the effect that mAdhva vaishnavas had no love of God, other than the silly, childish logic to the effect of "they did ritualistic ceremonies, therefore they had no love of Godhead."

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MAdhwacahry quoted verses that cannot be found.Is it because they are not there?

Two instances of this are found in his Visnu Tattva Vinirnaya, wherein he quotes the following from Skanda Purana —

 

 

 

 

ajnanam jnanado visnuh

 

 

 

 

jnaninam moksadas ca sah

 

 

 

 

 

anandadas ca muktanam

 

 

 

 

 

sa aiveko janardanah

 

 

"The Supreme Lord Janardana gives knowledge to the ignorant, liberation to the enlightened and bliss to the liberated."

 

 

 

And from the Padma Purana —

 

 

 

 

nrpadya satavrtyanta

 

 

 

 

muktiga uttarottaram

 

 

 

 

 

gunaih sarvaih sataguna

 

 

 

 

 

modanta iti hi srutih

 

 

"From Manusyottama upto Brahma, all enjoy the bliss multiplied by hundred in an ascending order, thus the sruti declares."

 

 

 

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He was "greatly celebrated," and yet there is no record of him in the mAdhva mathas.

 

 

 

 

 

Have you gone through all the records of the Madhva Mathas?

No, you haven't.

so, really you are just making an unqaulified conjecture based upon your own personal prejudice, because in fact you have never gone through all the records of the Madhva sampradaya.

Even at that, Madhavendra Puri was expected to have taken sannyasa from the Shankara sampradaya and of course there would be no record of that in the Madhva Mathas.

 

It is accepted that Madhavendra Puri took diksha in the Madhva line, but not sannyasa.

Therefore, that there are Matha records for every disciple initiated by every guru in the Madhva line is in itself not a verifiable claim.

 

You make some wild claims as if you have personally gone through all the records of all the Madhva Mathas to search out if Madhavendra Puri is there, when in fact he was a sannyasa from the Shankara sect who took diksha mantra in the Madhva line.

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MAdhwacahry quoted verses that cannot be found.

 

All acharyas did. Likely this is due to those pramAnas being lost over time. But the difference is that Madhvacharya's core tenets are based on pramAnas which are still extant, whereas Gaudiya Vaishnava view that Chaithanya = Krishna is only to be found in obscure references that no one has heard of and are only acceptable to Gaudiyas.

 

In Madhva's time, no one questioned the authenticity of many of the sources he quoted from. Whereas among Gaudiyas, there is internal dissent about such things as "Chaithanya Upanishad" as we have seen here.

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In Madhva's time, no one questioned the authenticity of many of the sources he quoted from. Whereas among Gaudiyas, there is internal dissent about such things as "Chaithanya Upanishad" as we have seen here.

 

Aha thats an answer to your own question about why the verse numbers are not mentioned.

Faith .

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Have you gone through all the records of the Madhva Mathas?

 

As a matter of fact I have. By the way, have you? Since it was your claim that he was a "greatly celebreated" Madhva sannyasi you must surely have some evidence to back that up.

 

 

Even at that, Madhavendra Puri was expected to have taken sannyasa from the Shankara sampradaya and of course there would be no record of that in the Madhva Mathas.

 

So let me see if I have gotten this straight. He was a greatly celebrated Madhva ascetic who took sannyasa initiation from a mayavadi?

 

 

It is accepted that Madhavendra Puri took diksha in the Madhva line, but not sannyasa.

 

Accepted by whom? There is still no historical record of a Madhavendra Puri or even of Lakshmipati Tirtha from whom he supposedly took diksha in the Madhva Maths. Casting stones at me is not going to change that.

 

 

Therefore, that there are Matha records for every disciple initiated by every guru in the Madhva line is in itself not a verifiable claim.

 

I think the issue was your claim that he was "greatly celebrated." Whatever else you believe about the Astha-Matha parampara listings, you can be quite certain that they will include all "greatly celebreated" individuals.

 

 

You make some wild claims as if you have personally gone through all the records of all the Madhva Mathas to search out if Madhavendra Puri is there, when in fact he was a sannyasa from the Shankara sect who took diksha mantra in the Madhva line.

 

Whatever you say, Sonic.

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Aha thats an answer to your own question about why the verse numbers are not mentioned.

Faith .

 

Sant, please take a course on elementary reading comprehension. And while you're at it, it wouldn't hurt for you to grow up a little and get a bit of maturity before coming to forums like these and picking fights.

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Sant, please take a course on elementary reading comprehension. And while you're at it, it wouldn't hurt for you to grow up a little and get a bit of maturity before coming to forums like these and picking fights.

 

 

Ofcourse thats whats expected from you.When you know youve been beaten at your own argument then you come up with excuses about my english being bad.

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