Re: Sri Bhashyakarar and Sri Vishnupuranam etc
From the Bhakti List Archives
• April 19, 2000
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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Enjoy the award-winning journalism of The New York Times with convenient home delivery. And for a limited time, get 50% off for the first 8 weeks by subscribing. 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