Bhakti List Archives

RE: When posting appeals...

From the Bhakti List Archives

Krishna Kalale • Sun Sep 19 1999 - 05:00:29 PDT 


Sri Mani wrote :
    To explain: It was written yesterday that the Pomona Ranganatha
    temple is the "one and only authentic Sri Vaishnava temple ...
    [without] any presence of dEvathAntharam in it in this continent".

    Does this make Sri Govindaraja Sannidhi in Chidambaram a false
    Sri Vaishnava temple? After all, He is resting right next to
    Lord Nataraja and Natana Ganapati. What about the various other
    Divya Desams praised by Alvars, where there happen to be
    another devatA inside?

[Krishna Kalale]

Please see my earlier posting on this issue.  Here I would like to add an 
important issue.  In some common temples here where there are separate 
prakarams to all deities,  bhajans are common;  people sing bhajans on all 
deities in a common area of the temple.  Some of the bhajans of anya 
devatas have a haunting tune and one invariably brings them to their minds 
and to their homes unknowingly.

This, again depends on the maturity of the individual;  I have to confess I 
dont even like to listen to bhajans or classical music on anya devatas 
which often are even philosophically erroneous : for example for all 
deities a statement such as "Om kara rupa ....... or moksha daata etc.  are 
added in the bhajans. These songs or kirthanas are definitely misleading.

  This is wrong due to many reasons.  In rahasya traya sara,  such a great 
acharya like Sri Vedanta Desika states : " tadiya paryantam tyajyar". 
 meaning " anya devata samparkam should be avoided to the extent of 
avoiding the anya devata worshippers".  This is not my statement,  Such a 
brilliant acharya has made a so called narrowminded statement (according to 
modern people who are WRONG).  This statement is uttered with definitely a 
lot of practical consideration by Sri Vedanta Desika. Please note, that the 
same Sri Vedanta Desika is not a biased person by any chance.  He states 
that "Mahadeva is a great dayalu (kind person) , who resides in Kashi and 
teaches Rama taraka mantra  to lead people towards Srimannarayana" in I 
think samkalpa suryodaya. Sri Vedanta Desika obviously knows not to 
overstate or understate the truth that anyadevatas are not Srimannarayana.

Again,  common temples often puts people in philosophically awkward 
situations.  This is obviously avoided at Pomona temple NY.

adiyen Krishna Kalale