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Re: Misconception

From the Bhakti List Archives

Thirumalai Anandanpillai • Sun May 04 1997 - 10:48:44 PDT 


Sri Parthasarati Dileepan wrote:

> 
> Not long ago Sri Varadan claimed Thenacharya sampradayam is equal to Sri
> Vaishnavam and Sri Vaishnavam is nothing but Thenacharya sampradayam, thus
> completing the necessary and sufficient conditions defining a Sri Vaishnava
> and quoted Sri PBA in support.  However, he is yet to furnish the
> clarifications I requested.  He further went on to accuse me of being
> sectarian!!  While I have no interest in silly fights about Kalais, I am
> not going to be the one to simply stand by when views such as this are
> stated.  Please remember, no one has suggested  here that Desika
> Sampradayam is Sri Vaishnavam and Sri Vaishnavam is nothing but Desika
> Sampradayam!  Thus, the origin of sectarian views is obvious.


Dear Sri.Dileepan,

 I am not interested in 'debating' your interpretation of what was said.
There is
no point in me trying to debate the position that u have taken when what
I said
never was intended to be interpreted in the way you did. 

My intepretation of the passage that I quoted is to include both the
vadakalai
and the thenkalai sampradaayams as 'thennaachaarya sampradaayam'. But
since 
a lot of people in this group seem to be offended by that
interpretation, I 
will not refer to SV as thennaachaarya sampradaayam anymore.

If I had interpreted PBA's words the same way you did, then I would have
had
 to ascribe a motive (i.e. denying the existence of the vadakalai
sampradaayam) to 
Sri.PBA. Who am I to ascribe such motives to such a great bhaagavatha? 

Sri.PBA does not consider vEdaanta dEsikar as a 'vadagalai' aachaaryan.
He considers him to be a SV aachaaryan. The same holds true for the 
so-called 'thenkalai' aachaaryaas. PBA takes the stand that all the
achaaryaas
are SV aacharyaas. 

PBA has written volumes on vEdaanta dEsikar's works. For example, I 
happen to have a copy of the first volume of his series titled 'sri
dEsika
rahasya maalai' [ this has 16 rahasyams in it - sampradaaya parisudhdhi,
thathva padhavi, rahasya padhavi, thathva navaneedham, rahasya
navaneedham,
thathvamaathrukaa, rahasyamaathrukaa, thathva sandhEsam, rahasya
sandhEsham,
thathva rathnaavaLi, thathva rathnaavaLi prathipaadhya sangraham,
rahasya
ratnaavaLi, rahasya ratnaavaleehridayam, srimad thathvatraya suLakam and
rahasyatraya suLakam; volume 2  is srimad rahasyaatraya saaram, volume 3
has many rahasyams including saarasaaram.].

I also happened to grow up about 5 houses next to him in keezhanda maada
veedhi
in Kanchipuram. Having had the  good fortune of learning some parts of
the prabhandham
and about the sampradaayam from him, and knowing his family quite well,
I interpreted the word thennaachaarya sampradaayam to be an inclusive
one in this 
context. (Even if I had not known him, I would still have the same
interpretation.)
 
Also, Sri.Dileepan, when PBA was still with us, he always performed the
'thodakkam'
kainkaryam [starting the gOshti] to all the gOshtis in Kanchipuram- This
includes
vEdaanta Desikar's goshti on every thiruvONam day, and vEdaanta
dEsikar's 
thirunakshattiram. Even to this day, if you go to Kanchipuram on a
thiruvONam, 
you can see thenkalais proudly leading the gOshti during vEdaanta
dEsikar's
purappaadu. [I am just mentioning this to try to clarify things to you.
In my opinion,
it really does not matter who is in what gOshti. I do not even care to
see who is
what kalai in gOshtis].

Am I guilty of writing something that leaves room for interpretation?
Yes. I apologise
for that I will try my best not to write things that leave room for
interpretation in
the future. But, Am I guilty of taking the position that you seem to
think I took?
No. 

Just to summarize,
  (i) My interpretation of PBA's words was that he includes both the
sampradaayams
       in this context.
   (ii) Even if I was confused about what he meant, I still would have
taken the same
 position - Who am I to attribute such non-inclusive motives to Sri.PBA?

  (iii) If you seem to think that Sri.PBA tried to deny the existence
   of the vadakalai sampradaayam, I do not know what to say to you. Thei
choice is
 yours - You either can interpret sri.PBA's words with the basic
assumption that 
 such a great bhaagavatha will have no such intentions - Or, you can
still interpret
 his words with the assumption that he was trying to deny the existence
of the 
 vadakalai tradition. You make the call.

 (iv) If you still want clarifications, I would much rather take this
conversation
     to emails rather than discussing this on the group.

Varadhan