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Re: Sri Bhashyakarar and Sri Vishnupuranam etc

From the Bhakti List Archives

Anand Karalapakkam • Wed Apr 19 2000 - 09:13:31 PDT 


SrI:
SrI Lakshminrusimha ParabrahmaNE namaha
SrI Lakshminrusimha divya pAdukA sEvaka SrIvaN SatakOpa -
SrI nArAyaNa yateendra mahAdESIkAya namaha

 Dear SrI Narasimhan,
 namO nArAyaNa.


> 3. sri Jiva goswami of the same school in his tattav
> sandharbha  strongly establishes the bagavatham as the
> best of all the pramanams incl. the srutis even.

  SrImad BhAgavatham as such is considered as "Sruti"
  by some Gaudiya Vaishnava AchAryas, which can't be 
  accepted by us and other vaidikAs ie. those who follow
  vEdas. adiyEn doesn't know as to whether SrI BaladEva,
  who wrote a commentry for Brahma sUtras for Gaudiya
  Vaishnavas, endorses the view that SrImad BhAgavatham is
  a Sruti. It will then be contradictory to quote SrImad 
  BhAgavatham as a pramAna by him, in those places where sUtras
  refer to a Smruti for further strengthening its standpoint.
   
  
> 4. on why sri bhasyakarar did not include srimad
> bhagavatham as one of the pramanams, a) srimad
> bhagavatahma states that Lord Krishna to be the
> supreme lord and not an avatara.(in the krishna
> sandharbha this is established by jiva goswami)while
> Sri VP states on the contrary.

 SrImad BhAgavatham (SB) has nowhere contradicted VEdAnta.
 Gaudiya Vaishnavas take the SB verse "etE .....krishNAstu
 bhagavAn swayam" to understand as if Lord KrishNa is the
 "original" God and four handed forms of God are only His
  expansions. They call these four handed forms of God as
 NArAyana.  

 Its only a misunderstanding of that verse by Gaudiya 
 Vaishnavas (GVs) and adiyEn has earlier posted an article on
 this issue. adiyEn has slightly modified and edited that 
 version to be more clear. It will be sent as a separate
 posting.
  
 One of the difficulties in the philosophy of GVs is that, 
 they have a graded version of the Ultimate Truth viz. 
 BhagavAn, ParamAtma and NirguNa Brahman.

 BhagavAn is equated with Lord KrishNa who is accalimed
 by them as the original God, filled with all auspicious 
 qualities etc. To be more precise, some GVs also say that,
 only that KrishNa who was at BrindAvan playing with gOpis,
 and esp. who did rAsa krIda is the "original" God and 
 all other forms are only His expansions. For GVs, there
 is a gradation in moksha. For them, there are many VaikuNThas
 and one place apart from them called Goloka, all of which
 are not in the material world. The different VaikuNThas
 are said to be presided by various expansions of the original
 God KrishNa, who is at Goloka. To adiyEn's understanding, they
 also say inherent differences in the jIvAtmas. According to
 them, certain jIvAtmas are inherently related to Original God
 to be in "mAdhurya rasa" ie.the relationship as that of 
 gOpis who played the rAsa krIda with Lord. Some are related
 as that of YasOda, some as that of Arjuna as a friend etc.
 Thus, they hold difference in the vary nature of jIvAtmas itself. 
 According to them, mAdhurya rasa is experienced at Goloka and
 thus forms the ultimate moksham. Attainment of other vaikuNThas
 are of lower nature due to the non-availibility of this mAdhurya
 rasa. Well, these gradation system in moksha has no scriptural
 authority (accepted by other vEdAntins) and its their formulation 
 due to their excessive love for Lord KrishNa. There is no mention
 of such gradations in principal Upanishads, Brahma sUtras and
 Bhagavad gIta. Infact, there are many contradictory statements
 to their theory.

 For GVs, ParamAtma is also none other than BhagavAn, but an 
 expansion of Him, manifesting only certain qualities etc. To 
 adiyEn's understanding, they equate ParamAtma with the antaryAmi 
 form of PerumAL and also to other 4 handed forms of PerumAL.

 Surprisingly, they also accept the existence of "NirguNa Brhaman" 
 as that of Sankara. But, it is equated to the effulgence coming
 out of the divine body of BhagavAn. The effulgence spreads 
 outside of the spiritual world and those who are after nirguNa
 Brahman (advaitins) are said to get merged into that effulgence.
 But, this NirguNa Brahman is none other than BhagavAn for them
 in ultimate reality, but is only an expansion of BhagavAn. This
 gives them a very contradictory metaphysical stand since BhagavAn
 is savisEsha (who has various guNas, form etc) and He can't 
 simultaneously be "nirvisEsha" (without any attributes whatsoever)
 as "NirguNa Brahman". They also say that BhagavAn and His 
 attributes are absolutely same, which is logically contradictory.
 They get into a fix and dispose all these by saying that its
 "acintya" ie. un-explicable. Similar to how advaitins 
 conveniently try to escape the objections by incorporating all of 
 them into the "nature of avidya", GVs incorporate the objections 
 into "acintya" (ie."Unexplicable" is the very answer, though our 
 Bhagavad RAmanuja has clearly established as to how the tattvas 
 are clearly explainable without contradictions). Bhagavad 
 RAmAnuja's establishment of the tattvAs and esp. the relationship
 between Brahman and chit+achit, is fully grounded in Upanishads
 themselves (ie. SarIra-SarIri bhAva and the concept of apruthak
 siddi ie. inseparable union is verily present in Upanishads).
 But the acintya theory of GVs is a logical deduction from the 
 metaphysical stand they hold for various tattvas and thus 
 "yukti" (logic) scores over the pramAna for them ultimately.


 Also, none of the Brahma vidyas ( ie.upAsanAs prescribed in 
 Upanishads, which are the direct means for attaining moksha; also 
 known as bhakti yOga in Bhagavad gIta) in Upanishads has 
 instructed the meditation of Lord KrishNa who is their BhagavAn, 
 for attaining moksha. The meditation of Brahman in various Brahma
 vidyAs of Upanishads are of the category belonging to the 
 meditaion of ParamAtma for GVs. To circumvent this problem, GVs 
 probably raised the status of SB to a parallel Sruti and thus 
 claim that meditaion on Lord KrishNa is also a direct means for 
 moksha and also that its the highest form of moksha. They say that
 SB is also a "Sruti" and thus we can derive this information. 
 Even by accepting SB as a Sruti, they can't actually prove this
 standpoint very authoritatively. 

 Considering Lord KrishNa as the "original God" is a direct
 violation of very authoritative texts of pAncarAtra AgamAs.
 Lakshmi Tantra (11.19-25), SAtvata Samhita (ch.9) and Ahirbudhnya
 Samhita (5.50-57) clearly enumerate the various vibhava avatAras
 like Lord Nrusimha, Lord vAmana, Lord RAma and others, and
 Lord KrishNa is in this list. SrI Vaishnava AchAryas have 
 clearly made this point and that Lord KrishNa's form as 
 such is not the "para" form, and He is a vibhava avatAra only, 
 like Lord Nrusimha, Lord RAma and others.

 Also, according to SAstras, those who perform upAsana (deep 
 meditation) on the vibhava forms of God will reach the vibhava 
 lOkas, which are actually inside the material world. Similarly, 
 those who meditate upon the vyUha forms of God will reach the 
 vyUha lOkas. Please refer to archives for more information on
 this issue. Thus, meditation on Lord KrishNa (and not adopting
 any standard upAsana prescribed in Upanishads) will make one 
 attain GOloka, which is inside the material world only. There
 is only one spiritual world called VaikuNTha and there is no 
 gradation in moksha.

 For a prapanna, it doesn't matter as to which form of God 
 ( vyUha, vibhava, arca etc) he/she worships, since the means 
 (sAdhyaupAya) of moksha is not "upAsana", but prapatti/
 SaraNAgathi itself. But, those who adopt bhakti yOga 
 ie.upAsana should neccessarily come to the stage of adopting
 an upAsana. PAncarAtra aids one to come to that stage, by
 prescribing meditations on vyUha, vibhava avatAras etc. Brahma
 sUtras deal with the way one has to perform the bhakti-yOga ie.
 upAsana and the upAsana of vyUha, vibhava avatAras in pAncarAtra
 doesn't incorporate such rigorous specifications.

-------------------------
  SrI Sripathy wrote :
    
  My question is Lord krishna revealed all the 64
  qualities which a supreme personality of godhead
  possess.But in all the other avathars he didnt reveal
  all his qualities.Does this mean during other avathars
  he didnt not possess it or he din't reveal
  it.(Especially during rama avathara where he took a
  human birth and livrd with manushya sharira)
  Sripathy
---------------------

  There is nothing like God has only 64 qualities. Its just
  an enumeration by a GV AchArya for the purpose of enjoying
  the auspicious qualities. God has infinitely many auspicious
  qualities. There is nothing like Lord RAma has lesser
  number of qualities than Lord KrishNa etc. Even according
  to GVs, both Lord Rama and Lord KrishNa are same, but 
  different only in the manifestation of qualities and ofcourse
  Lord KrishNa being the original for them.

  One can enumerate qualities of Lord RAma like "ever speaker of
  truth", "marrier of only one wife" etc which can't be found in 
  Lord KrishNa. Based on this, one should not arrive at 
  conclusions like one avatAra is superior to other absolutely. 
  The superiority of the avatAras are being talked about, only 
  based on certain manifestation of guNas etc of the same person 
  and the "stress" is on the experience of such guNas and not to 
  make an absolute metaphysical distinction as if Lord RAma is 
  ever inferior to the avatAra of Lord KrishNa etc. Since its
  the same God who takes many avatAras, one should enjoy all the
  auspicious qualities exhibited in all the avatAras and there 
  is no Sastric authority to state that worshipping Lord KrishNa
  is superior to Lord RAma etc. Such theories are formulated by
  GVs out of their excessive love towards Lord KrishNa.
  

> b) in some places as alredy brought out by other
> subscribers the position of Sri is not as in the
> Vishnu puraanam eg. She could not take part in the
> Rasa Lila of Krishna .

  adiyEn has seen many GVs keep stressing that only those in
  mAdhurya rasa (like gOpis) can perform rAsa krIda with
  Lord KrishNa and even "SrI" ie.Lakshmi dEvi can't perform it.
  These argumnets are made due to the lack of understanding 
  of the tattvas. Moreoever, there is nothing in SrImad BhAgavatham 
  that supports these theories. "SrI" is verily the consort 
  of God and is always in all possible anubhavas with God, by being 
  present ever in union with Him. Even when Lord KrishNa was playing 
  rAsa krIda, "SrI" was united with Him in His chest with a rUpa, 
  apart from being united together through their divyAtma swaroopas
  (ie.God by His divyAtma swaroopa is all pervading and the 
      divya  aatma Swaroopa of SrI is in union with Him). 

       
  adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan,
  anantapadmanAbhan.
  krishNArpaNam.

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