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Re: svAmi maNavALa mAmuni being rAmAnujA's avatAra

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TV Venkatesh/FXSLF/SEC/SANMAR • Sun Dec 02 2001 - 20:12:31 PST 


srImathE rAmAnujAya namaha
srImadh varavara munayE namaha

Dear Sri Mani,

I will try to answer these questions to my knowledge.

If only jnYanam (knowledge) is enough to attain mOksha, then the very
existence of visishTAdvaitha is under question or even jeopardy, for,
mOksha for jnyAna is advaitha vAdha. (Please correct me if I am wrong
here).

Then why do we repeat that the jnyAnam gives us mOksham. It is actually the
actions that develops further, when one attains knowledge, will lead to
mOksham. I will try to explain the answer in two parts based on your
question.

1. "tam Evam vidwAn amrutha iha bhavathi". I actually have not read the
vyAkhyAnam for this, but will reply to this from the brief explanation that
you gave and also based on simple logics. (Again, if I am wrong here please
do correct me). You gave the explanation as " one who *knows* Him attains
immortality here itself". The next question that comes into the mind is. If
one just knows about Him, will he attain mOksha immediately? The answer is
No. Means, you have to see what are the consequences of gaining the
knowledge about Him. It will lead the prapanna to do prapatti. Again, when
doing prapatti what does he gets to know about Him. He gets to know that "
He is the upAya for getting the mOksha". This is from the slOka " tvamEva
upAya bhoothO me bhava iti prArthanA mathi: saraNAgati", meaning, he will
attain mOksha, if he does prapatti with the knowledge that He is the upAyam
for attaining mOksham. So, here, knowing Him means, knowing 'about' Him
that He is the upAya. Naturally he gets mOksha when these corollaries are
met with in relation to the main theorem of "jnyAna" about Him.

2. The Sri vachana bhooshaNa sUtra " adu phalippadu ivan ninaiva mArinAl"
also talks about "avan ninaivu" as above performing saraNAgathi with the
thought that He is the upAyam to attain mOksham, yields him the mOksham.

So just the knowledge by itself will not get the mOksham, but the deeds of
the prapanna after attaining the knowledge is what is really required for
mOksham. What Sri Varadhan probably stated as " it does not depend on the
knowledge", is that, the lord is not bound by the knowledge and his
consequent acts to give him mOksham. For sure, when one gets the knowledge,
he will only go on the right path to attain mOksha. The knowledge and its
corollary of performing prapatti are only qualifications or "adhikAri
visEshaNa". This is very concept of "nirhEtuka kripA" of emberumAn. There
are cases to prove this, like, the prapatti did by Sri BharathAzhwAn, for
Sri rAmA to return to ayOdhyA did not yield result, though the act of
performing the surrender was clearly done according to the books, whereas
VibheeshaNa saraNAgathi yielded results for him, though it was not done
according to the books. I mean to say that actually VibheeshaNA was in the
sky and emberumAn was in the ground when the saraNAgathi was done.

AzhwAr emberumAnAr jeeyar thiruvadigaLE saraNam
adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan
Thirumalai Vinjamoor Venkatesh

                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
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