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Re: "mArgazhi" diary

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Sridhar Srinivasan • December 28, 1999 


Dear Sri Sampathkumar:

I sense a certain resentment in your posting vis a vis my comments 
about YOUR interpretations/reflections on tiruppavai.  My 
'gratuitous' (and obviously unwelcome) comments seem to have 
engendered significant felicity of expression on your kind part.  Let 
me attempt to clarify a few things:

> Sri Sampathkumar wrote:
>
> Adiyen thanks Sri.T.A.Varadan and Sri.Sridhar for
> their comments and gratuitous advice. 
> 
> Adiyen recognizes a "gag-order" when he sees one and
> fully understands what is being meant. 

I (and for that matter anybody else here, I suppose) have no desire 
or qualification to impose a gag order on you or anybody else.  Your 
viewpoints are as valid as anybody else'.  The aspect that I took 
exception to stemmed from your efforts to somehow lend sampradayic 
enjoinment to your reflections, as you clearly do here:

> Sri Sampathkumar wrote:
>
> But the chief purpose of life, according to Vedanta,
> is to understand and trancend the "purushArthA-s".
> Once we do attain an intuitive understanding of the
> principles of "aram", "porul", "inbam" and "mOksa" we
> are said to be on the certain road to Godhead.
> 
> Andal's "tiruppAvai", scholars and "achAryA-s" remind
> us, actually teems with several scintillating
> references to this great Vedantic matrix of
> "purushArthA-s" described above.

A good friend of mine  was trying to 
convince me the other day that thiruppavai was a derivative work of 
the shaivite work thiruvambAvai.  Well, he has a right to hold that 
view point.  However, he is not correct in telling me that our 
AcharyAls (who are celebrated as "Eka kanThasthAL" - there is not a 
situation where, down the lineage, would you find guru-shishya 
grantha virOdham - Lakshminathan down to our current day acharyas) 
provide 'scintillating' references to support his rather untenable 
position.  Likewise, it behooves you to provide references from 
Scholars and Acharyas (as Sri Mani had reminded you earlier) if you 
are going to claim that your interpretations are supported by the 
sampradAyam.

Also, when it comes to something as exalted as tiruppavai, there are 
no higher or lower standards of interpretation.  There is just one 
standard set forth by Emberumaanaar down to swami dEsikan and 
maNavALa maamunigaL.  And it is a standard of uncompromising attitude 
 towards the divine that we can all only enjoy by learning and 
sharing.  

> 
> Adiyen is sorry to have "offended" you both Sir on the
> eve of the "new millennium". He shall offend you no
> further, most reverend Sirs,
> 

I am not qualified enough  to take 'offense' at your words.  I would 
just like to suggest that you should, may be, 'reflect' publicly once 
you have had an opportunity to learn (preferably through an Acharya) 
from the numerous vyAkhyAnams available on tiruppavai.   That way, 
you will never be in a position to mis-interpret anything.  

Please forgive me if my words have hurt your sensiblities.  The 
intent was to clarify and not to hurt.

aDiyEn,

sridhar