Search:
Bhakti List Archives

Re: "muppadUm thappAmE" -- CONCLUSION

From the Bhakti List Archives

sampath kumar • January 17, 2000 


--- ashwin sadhu  wrote:
> Dear Sri. Sampath,
 I am merely expressing
> my take on the issue.  I have no right to pass
> judgement on you or anyone
> else 

Dear Venkat,
>From your posts I can see you are very young
(definitely younger than I!) but please relax, and
feel free to express yourself. Adiyen will never take
it amiss as long as we post to each other in a
friendly, conversational style and in a spirit of
mutual enrichment.... "parasparam bhAvayantah:"...
instead of trying to deliver sermons to each other. 

> I think we are approaching the issue from different
> angles.> What do terms like "must become" and
"Present-day"> imply?
> Venkat

Venkat,
This is a very complicated subject but let's both
continue to think aloud and see where our "differing
angles" can converge, shall we?

What I mean is very simply this: 
(1) SriVaishnava "sampradAya", or "tradition" as you
have yourself defined it, is nowhere seen today to
have the hold over people it had in its heydays. Why?

(2) Some of the most basic and externally visible
features of SriVaishnavam are (a) wearing
"urdhvapundhram" (b) doing "trikAla-sandhyAvandanam"
(c) undergoing "samAshrayanam" and (d) "kainkaryam".
Tell me how prevalent are these external marks of
"sampradAyam" visible in our lives?

(3) How many children in SriVaishnava homes are taught
by their own parents to recite "tiruppAvai"? How many
of them grow up getting to naturally appreciate it as
great religious poetry in the tradition of
"srisampradAyam"? In how many homes do SriVaishnava
families perform "tiru-ArAdana" to their domestic
deities with those select, simple stanzas of the holy
tiruppAvai adiyen explained in his post yesterday?

(4) How many SriVaishnavas who join the "stampede" for
the "sAtrumarrai-seva" at Tirumala realise the mockery
they make of it when they clamour to get into it by
hurriedly shaving off their "side-burns" and painting
higgedly-piggedly "tirumann-srichurnam" on themselves?
How many of them insist that inside the sanctum-
sanctorum in the presence of the Lord the
"sAtrumarrai" must be conducted with the somemnity and
reverence that "sAtrumarrai-seva" must actually be
held? Given a chance all of us will hold forth
eloquently on the philosophical wealth contained in
the Stanzas#29 and #30 of the tiruppAvai but to what
use all those perorations if we allow the "tiruppAvai"
to be short-changed during "sAtrumarrai" in our
temples? 

What kind of "sampradAyam" is this?

Please think about what adiyen is really trying to
say. Adiyen writes more in sadness than in bitterness.


And please do give your views too. Adiyen is always
willing to listen to the other point of view
especially from younger people with fresh minds. 

dAsan,
Sampathkumaran 
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com