Re: demigod worship
From the Bhakti List Archives
• August 27, 2000
Visishtadvaita philosophy rejects the advaitin notion that the Supreme Being is one without any qualities. Srivaishnava samprathayam teaches us that Sriman Narayana is endowed with infinite divine qualities (kalyANa guNankaL). This is very clearly shown to us by nammAzhvAr in the first line of the first thiruvAymozhi pAsuram. "uyarvaRa uyarnalam udaiyavan yavanavan" To illustrate: In those days (and on rare occasions even now) musicians would sing for several hours on one particular ragam only. But it was always important that the audience was made aware of what the ragam was within the first few minutes. It would not be a good musician that took a long time to make clear what ragam he/she was presenting. nanjeeyar whenever he made upanyAsams on nammAzhvAr's thiruvAymozhi, always expressed his amazement at the fact that nammAzhvAr denied the advaitin notions and brought out emperumAn's true nature in not just the first verse, but in the first line of the first verse (almost like a slap in the face). Vedas also desribe Sriman Narayana as posessing countless divine qualities as well as countless poor qualities (dOsha gunaNkaL). This is explained by our Acharyas as: He has infinite divine qualities and hence they cannot be counted; on the other hand, He has no poor qualities and hence they cannot be counted as well (there has to be at least one to even start counting). Of course, that is the exact opposite for us. On a side note: while talking about making the main concept clear very early in one's presentation, it is also said that to understand a presentation, one only has to read the beginning and the end. In this context, the following two words were taken out by our poorvAchAryAs from thiruvAymozhi. From the first verse, the key word is "aruLinan" and from the last verse the key word is "veedu peRRa". With those two words, nammAzhvAr defined the Srivaishnava philosophy. That is, His grace (aruL) is the means (upAyam) and reaching Him (veedu) is the end (purushArththam). adiyEn madhurakavi dhAsan T.C.A. Venkatesan --- In bhakti-list@egroups.com, bhavani nirmalwrote: > Dear devotees: > > Born in an Udipi brahmin family, my favorite form of > god to worship is Udipi Sri Krishna. I am partial to > this form. Please advise me if I am wrong in doing > that because I am not worshipping the Lord as Narayana > but Sri Krishna. After all, I thought Sri Krishna is > an incarnation of Lord Vishnu/Sriman Narayana. I am > confused by all the out pourings of learned men of the > group on worship of demi gods. Please enlighten me. > During my course of study at the University I came > under the influence of many who were partial to the > Advaita doctrine and I tended to adopt their view that > that there is only one paramatman who is formless and > though he is called by many names, there is only One > Supreme Spirit. No offense to any of the devotees of > the list but I humbly seek answers. > > ===== > Bhavani > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! > http://mail.yahoo.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------- - SrImate rAmAnujAya namaH - To Post a message, send it to: bhakti-list@eGroups.com Visit http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/ for more information
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