Search:
Bhakti List Archives

Re: sandhyAvandanam

From the Bhakti List Archives

schakrav • August 3, 1999 


Mani wrote:
> It seems your position is that it is ok to do sandhyAvandanam without 
> thinking of PerumaaL. I respectfully request pramANa-s from acharyas'
> writings in the Sri Vaishnava sampradAya. In the meantime, I will take
> Swami Periyavaaccaan Pillai's explanation over yours.

It appears to me that this discussion concerns the following questions:

[1]  SHOULD sandhyAvandanam be done without thinking of PerumAL?

[2]  CAN sandhyAvandanam be done without thinking of PerumAL?

[3]  Is the act of sandhyAvandanam useful either way?

Obviously, the answer to [1] is NO.  [2] is possible, by mindlessly repeating
the chants and going through the actions in a mechanical way.  I think many
people feel that it is not sandhyAvandanam at all, if done in this way so 
perhaps it could be called by some other name.  But the source of disagreement
is mostly about [3].  Attempting to perform sandhyAvandanam (even mindlessly)
may be better than not doing it at all.  However there is no doubt in my mind
that any/all of our AchAryas would agree that sandhyAvandanam is not just a
nitya-karma but bhagavat-kainkaryam as well and that we must all strive to
practice it as such.  Likewise I am confident that our AchAryas would not
chastise someone if they admitted to not thinking about PerumAL while doing
their sandhyAvandanam.  As NammAzhwAr said,  "Poyyai sonnEn ... meyyai peRREn".

Regards,
-Srinath Chakravarty
email: xsrinath@ti.com