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Re: worship of Srivaishnava purvArcharyas (was kamba rAmAyanam)

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Lakshmi Narasimhan • November 22, 2002 


Srimathe Ramanujaya Namaha
Dear Shri Shreyas and other respected Shri Vaishnavas,
This is a long mail, learned scholars please do correct me if I am wrong.
 
Sorry if my post were misleading. My point was that, mumukshus should not
worship anyone else other than Shriman Narayana. We should not even worship
Shri Ramanujar or other Sarvabhoumars. That is the basic difference between
our Shri Vaishnava philosophy and other philosophies('cos they worship human
beings as the lord). In one of my earlier posts I had mentioned that Shri
Ramanujar had disregarded and burnt the first Ramanuja Nootrandhadhi that
was written by Thiruarangatthamudhanar. The reason being, it was completely
in praise of Shri Ramanujar. Shri Ramanujar was totally against the
nara-sthuthi and that included himself too. 
 
Vedas, do say mother, father and acharyan is god, and that is from a
different perspective. Respect is TOTALLY different from worship. In fact
that is the reason why we don't have separate temple for ANY OF THE
ALWARS/ACHARYAS. We only have temples of Shriman Narayana and later we added
the Alwar/Acharya vigrahams so that they would be remembered.
 
Worship according to Shri Ramanuja Siddhantham is doing Sharanagathi to the
ultimate. Probably the word worship is misleading or probably I took the
wrong word from english - I am sorry about that.
 
Aaradhanam is not Sharanagathi. We don't do sharanagathi to acharyas. We go
to them and they teach us how to do sharanagathi to the ultimate. We do
respect our acharyas for what they taught us and the way they guide us. But,
worshipping them is completely wrong, even according to Shri Ramanujar. 
 
As I said, we should respect our aacharyas and so should we respect deities
like brahma, siva etc.
 
IF WE WORSHIP our ACHARYAS, I would definitely say, we could also worship
anya-devatas like Siva, Brahma etc. Well, there is a catch here. Shri
Vaishnavas worship acharyas and that is not for any materialistic benefit.
So, if the same perception is maintained with other devatas, in that case,
any one may be worshipped who are of higher order to the jeevatmas i.e if we
worship Shiva with the perception that he is a great Vaishnavite then there
is nothing wrong. BUT, people worship Shiva or anya-devatas for material
benefit and that is WHY Shri Vaishnava philosophy strongly condemns
worshipping anya-devatas.
 
Bottom-line. Intent of condemning the anya-devata worship is not because
they are not Shriman Narayana. Worshipping any devata including the supreme
for materialistic benefit - is condemned. And if we worship any devata,
other than Shriman Narayana, they can't give moksham. So, the point of the
Sri Vaishnava philosophy is that - goal of a mumukshu is to attain moksham
and not any materialistic benefit. If the moksham can be given only by the
ultimate, we don't need to go to anyone else. In case of Acharyas, they show
the path for Moksham.
 
One should clearly remember that the Shri Vaishnava philosophy condemns when
a person does anya-devata worship EVEN AFTER KNOWING about the MOKSHA PATH.
If a person has no idea of the moksham, they could still worship
anya-devatas, because they act as acharyas too. Thirumazhisaippiran
worshipped so many anya-devatas and they all pointed him towards Shriman
Narayana. And that is what our acharyas do too.
 
Finally, all our acharyas have told us to treat acharyas as god and that is
for a reason - that is to make sure we follow - 'munnor mozhindha murai
thappamal kettu'. The moment we see them as jeevatmas, we might tend to ask
questions or might tend to go against them. This in NO WAY means we should
worship the acharyas i.e do sharanagathi to them(not for mumukshus at least)

 
Kindly accept my apologies if I was wrong and please feel free to correct me

 
Adiyen Ramanuja Dasan,
Lakshmi Narasimhan.
 
-------Original Message-------
 
From: bhakti-list@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, November 21, 2002 23:00:16
To: bhakti-list@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: worship of Srivaishnava purvArcharyas (was kamba rAmAyanam)
 
Sri:
Srimate Ramanujaya Namaha

--- Sri Laksmi Narasimham wrote:
> In fact I have another point which cannot 
> be(I guess) denied by any one. If
> we worship Shri Ramanujar, Shri Manavala 
> Maamunigal and Shri 
> Desikan then
> there is nothing wrong in worshipping Shiva 
> who is also a great
> Vaishnava.


Dear Sri Narasimhan,

I'm not sure if this is your viewpoint, but it appears 
misleading.

In Nyasa Vimshati(shloka 2), Swamy Desikan states 8
reasons why an Acharyan must be worshipped like God
Himself. Among other important reasons listed by Swamy
Desikan here, it would be relevant to point out that--
an Acharyan blesses us a spiritual birth that
prevents rebirth (Janma pradhvamsi janma pratha
garimathayA).

Srivaishnava Archarya saarvabhoumars (and prapannas of
the highest order) like Emperumaanaar, Swamy Mamunigal
and Swamy Desikan himself, are prime candidates for
this definition. 

Can the same be said, with certainty, of anya-devatas 
like Siva? Which shastra/Acharya has recommended 
*mumukshus* to worship these deities? 

Besides, Siva is a post. We can't be sure which
jivatma is being referred to. (refer Swamy Desikan's 
Varadaraja Panchashat shlokas 10 through 15).

> If one says he just respects the acharyas then he 
> could also 
> respect Shiva.

As you have noted yourself, having "respect" for someone does 
not imply that we must "worship" them.

In conclusion, I don't agree that the established
practice of aradhanam of Srivaishnava poorvAcharyas
can justify the worship of anya-devatas including
Siva.


Bhagawathas are requested to pardon and correct my
errors.

(Please refer a very informative and relevant post 
by Sri Anand Karalapakkam:
http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/feb98/0044.html
)

emperumaanaar thiruvadigale sharanam.
adiyen srikrishna dasan.
(Shreyas)


(Note from Moderator:  SrI Lakshmi Narasimhan's main points regarding the treatment of AcArya-s in our sampradAyam, their role vis-a-vis anya-devatA-s, etc., are contrary to my understanding on this subject.  As I had requested in the note to SrI Lakshmi Narasimhan's previous posting on this topic, I would like to once again make a request that it will be helpful if he can share the basis for his views, with support from AcArya-s etc., for his main points.  In other words, has any AcArya of SrI vaishNava sampradAyam taken the position that he is advocating, or is there any SAstric or other evidence for this position.  I would like to reqeust him to approach the issue from this perspective if he plans to pursue this line further).







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