Bhakti List Archives

Re: Fact or fiction?

From the Bhakti List Archives

Parthasarati Dileepan • Mon Jan 19 1998 - 08:27:59 PST 


While not disagreeing with many good points brought out
by Mani I would like to probe a little further on one 
specific matter which I think is vital to developing faith.


At 05:17 PM 1/18/98 -0800, Mani Varadarajan wrote:
>
>
>I think our faith (maha-viSvAsa) should be in
>the Truth of these avatAras.  When Rama extends
>his assurance of protection to everyone ("sakRd
>eva prapannAya"), our Acharyas are amazed and
>overcome with emotion that such a God could 
>actually exist, and experienced the utmost bliss
>meditating on this.  Does it matter when and where
>Rama actually said this? 

If we had the time and place wrong, surely that 
should not be a big deal.  But, does it matter 
whether Lord Rama actually made this promise
or not?  In other words, did Lord Rama really 
exist in this earth, or was He really a fictional 
hero elevated to divine status by later day saints 
who felt ennobled by the story.

In a private correspondence one of the respected
members of this group pointed out that Lord Krishna
Himself may be a composite of several noble people.  
There may never have been a Sri Krishna on this earth.  
Further, scientifically speaking, Srimad Bhagavath 
Geetha was a later insertion into Mahabharatham and 
was not written by Vyasa at all.

If these are so, the very foundation of Sri Vaishnavam,
i.e. the Lord's promise to free us from our Karmas and 
grant us His thiruvadi mOksham, is nothing more than 
someone's creative imagination.  Thus developing
Mahavisvasam is that much harder in this scientific
times.  Ignorance, perhaps, is bliss.

(p.s. It is also stated that almost certainly Bhagavatham
was written by someone from Tamilnadu in a period later 
than the Azhvaars, a contemporary of Sriman Nathamuni
perhaps.)


>
>P.S. Vedanta, particularly as interpreted by Ramanuja,
>is explicit that when the sastras contradict our direct
>experience (i.e., our senses and scientific data), the
>sastras have to be reinterpreted to agree with our
>experience (pratyaksha).


"Reconciled" seems to fit better than "reinterpreted".  
Otherwise, sampradaya would amount to nothing.


-- adiyEn