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Sri Bhashyakarar and Sri Vishnupuranam etc

From the Bhakti List Archives

A.Bharat • April 12, 2000 


Dear BhAgavatOttamas

In the recent postings there have been some discussions
re Sri BhAshyakArar's usage and non-usage of certain
texts.ADiyEn would like to supplement this with certain
facts gathered from aDiyEn's teachers.

Re the first point as to why he preferred to use exclusively
Sri Vishnupuranam whereas Sri Bhagavatam which is more
detailed could have been considered more appropriate,
the reason mentioned by Sri Murali Kadambi is certainly
a most valid one.Sri BhAshyakArar not only wanted to use
the PramANams which were used by his opponents so that
there could be no dispute re their validity,but also
because thro his natural brilliance he could and did
use IDENTICAL quotations from Sri Vishnupuranam first
in the Poorvapaksha to "prove" the Advaita point of view
and then in the SiddhAnta to coolly demolish it!

Apart from this other reasons for use of Sri VP were:
2.It had a reputation as an authoritative text from
very old times- it is mentioned in Sangam literature
and in Banabhatta's Harsha Charitam for instance.
whereas there was a constant controversy re the
authorship of Sri Bhagavatam even upto Sri BhAshyakArar's
times.
3.His guru SwAmi ALavandAr had given it the highest
place and called it the PurANa Ratnam.So there was
no question of Sri BhAshyakArar's choosing any other
text.
4.More relevantly to our SampradAyam: In Sri VP there
is an exclusive chapter to detail the greatness of
PirAtti,where she is called "VishNoranapAyinI" and
there is a Stuti also included therein.
In direct contrast, in Sri Bhag. her position is very
low and if one reads chapter 60 of DaSama Skandham
one finds her equated to Prakriti itself.There is
no question of "anapAyinItvam" there and in fact
the Lord is mentioned as being totally self-immersed
and indifferent to her! Obviously a book of that nature
however exquisitely beautiful in its descriptions
could hardly  be the authoritative text of the 
SRI VishishtAdwaita school!

As regards the second point of Sri BhAshyakArar's
non-usage of Divya Prabandham quotations: surely
the reason is obvious.He wrote exclusively in
Sanskrit and no Skt text could include tamil
quotations.Even SwAmi DeSikan who quotes so copiously
from DP in his tamil works,has to restrict himself
to Skt quotations in his glosses on Stotra Ratnam etc
whereas Sri PVP has no such problem.
But as pointed out by sri Mani there are ample instances
of Sri EmberumAnAr explaining specific stanzas from
DP,as detailed in Eedu and other commentaries to
substantiate the unanimous statement by all his
successors that it was DP which gave him the clear
insight into the Upanishadic Texts.
Sri EmberumAnAr TiruvaDigaLE SaraNam!
aDiyEn
BHARAT


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