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Re: demigod worship

From the Bhakti List Archives

T.C.A. Venkatesan • August 27, 2000 


Visishtadvaita philosophy rejects the advaitin notion 
that the Supreme Being is one without any qualities. 
Srivaishnava samprathayam teaches us that Sriman 
Narayana is endowed with infinite divine qualities 
(kalyANa guNankaL). This is very clearly shown to us
by nammAzhvAr in the first line of the first 
thiruvAymozhi pAsuram.

"uyarvaRa uyarnalam udaiyavan yavanavan"

To illustrate: In those days (and on rare occasions 
even now) musicians would sing for several hours on 
one particular ragam only. But it was always important 
that the audience was made aware of what the ragam was 
within the first few minutes. It would not be a good 
musician that took a long time to make clear what 
ragam he/she was presenting. nanjeeyar whenever he 
made upanyAsams on nammAzhvAr's thiruvAymozhi, always 
expressed his amazement at the fact that nammAzhvAr 
denied the advaitin notions and brought out emperumAn's 
true nature in not just the first verse, but in the
first line of the first verse (almost like a slap in
the face).

Vedas also desribe Sriman Narayana as posessing 
countless divine qualities as well as countless poor
qualities (dOsha gunaNkaL). This is explained by our
Acharyas as: He has infinite divine qualities and hence
they cannot be counted; on the other hand, He has no
poor qualities and hence they cannot be counted as 
well (there has to be at least one to even start 
counting). Of course, that is the exact opposite for
us.

On a side note: while talking about making the main
concept clear very early in one's presentation, it is 
also said that to understand a presentation, one only
has to read the beginning and the end. In this context,
the following two words were taken out by our
poorvAchAryAs from thiruvAymozhi. From the first verse,
the key word is "aruLinan" and from the last verse the 
key word is "veedu peRRa". With those two words, 
nammAzhvAr defined the Srivaishnava philosophy. That
is, His grace (aruL) is the means (upAyam) and reaching
Him (veedu) is the end (purushArththam).

adiyEn madhurakavi dhAsan
T.C.A. Venkatesan


--- In bhakti-list@egroups.com, bhavani nirmal  wrote:
> Dear devotees:
> 
> Born in an Udipi brahmin family, my favorite form of
> god to worship is Udipi Sri Krishna. I am partial to
> this form. Please advise me if I am wrong in doing
> that because I am not worshipping the Lord as Narayana
> but Sri Krishna. After all, I thought Sri Krishna is
> an incarnation of  Lord Vishnu/Sriman Narayana.  I am
> confused by all the out pourings of learned men of the
> group on worship of demi gods. Please enlighten me.
> During my course of study at the University I came
> under the influence of many who were partial to the
> Advaita doctrine and I tended to adopt their view that
> that there is only one paramatman who is formless and
> though he is called by many names, there is only One
> Supreme Spirit. No offense to any of the devotees of
> the list but I humbly seek answers.
> 
> =====
> Bhavani
> 
> 
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