Re: Immortality....
From the Bhakti List Archives
• November 13, 1998
Thanks to Bhagavathas for their opinions and comments on the subject I raised. I agree with both Sri. Madhavakannan, and Sri. S V Raghavan's view points. In fact I received some insightful comments from others as well. I find their views are akin to what I expressed to the original inquirer, before taking a shot at it from a different perspective. But there is one small correction. The note I posted as my reply, was in fact to a more (thought) provoking sub-query that the inquirer raised. Here it is: " The Puranic characters, (Asuras, Devas, Sages and Kshatrias ) specifically asked a boon for physical immortality after virtuously striving for it through penance and yagnyas etc., so that they can fight and win over their enemies in battle. Some did get it whereas others were denied on basis of merit. how do we justify for their boon if they are not among us?" It is to this that I had to reply the way I did. And I did include the concept of an eternal world beyond our (mortals) perception to justify - just as 'all' of us dont 'see' Perumal ( I believe some qualified seers do ) but everyone of us do perceive Him thru more than one way. The more off-beat addition to my reply was that there is the temporal limiting factor - the 'yuga' which of course I believe many (including me) arent comfortable due to the fact that there are instances were the said characters transcend a particular 'yugam' and interact with characters in other 'yugam'. And my quest in this respect is, is there any other way of providing a substantial argument to the question apart from what I ( and others in our group) had expressed ? I do acknowledge the inherent differences in 'expression', among Vedas, Upanishads and subsequent mythologies / puranas and the social and moral compulsions that existed during the time when they were written. But in saying so, it would mean that we accept some important concepts in our epics are not necessary justifiable and would also mean we are compromising on those ideas. I personally did not want to tow that line and I know none of us would want to either, which might give a uninformed questioner the false joy of ' proving the Epics/Vedas as mere fairy-tale stories with no basis'. And it is becos of this, that I had to repeatedly seek an improvisation in my replies to such queries, to make it justifiable on all fronts as much as possible. Because tomorrow, our children will ask us similar questions and we need to give them a very effective reply, failing which we would be doing a great dis-service to the Epics / Vedas, their proponent, our Acharyas, our principles and practises, Sri Vaishnavism and above all to Sriman Narayana. A recent note from Krishna Susarala calling to counter the 'glorification of villanious characters' is very much inline with the above view, albeit in a different perspective. Regards Sriram Ranganathan