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Re: Siva as yogi?
On 19 Jan 1996 07:15:14 GMT, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian
<rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu> wrote in soc.religion.hindu:
>susarla.krishna@studentserver1.swmed.edu (H. Krishna Susarla) wrote:
>
>>>>interested in translating it will be also, and they he can easily misquote
>>>>someone to support his own interpretations. Just keep that in mind... I
>>>>certainly don't consider the translator of the Kama Sutra to be an authority
>>>>on Ramanuja. Certainly someone who thought it necessary to translate KS must
>>>>have an interesting set of biases.
>>>
>>>I am interested in Indian literature and history. I don't need to justify it.
>>>The matter of fact is that a guy who translates the Kama Sutra can be very wel
>>>l
>>>versed in Sanskrit and can do a good job of translating other things too.
>>>I clearly stated that this may have been quoted out of context and asked the
>>>experts on Ramanuja to speak up. If you are one then please give me the facts.
>>>
>>
>>No, I am not a Ramanuja expert. Neither, I would say, is this Alain
>>Danielou. That's why I pointed this out. It is better to believe what
>>Ramanuja says from followers of Ramanuja. Just as it would be better to
>>learn about any philosophy from those who actually practice that philosophy.
>
>Well, even if a charvaka learns about the fine points of any system, be it
>Visishtadvaita or Advaita and argues and gives quotations and criticizes the
>interpretation of the respective school, he cannot be dismissed saying that he
>is after all a charvaka. After all, I am sure you must be aware that Ramanuja
>argued with Advaitins and converted them to Visish*. He could not have learnt
>it from an advaitin guru and practiced it and then opposed it. This clearly is
>Guru-droha. Kumarila Bhatta did such a thing and immolated himself over a slow
>fire as he found that the Veda advocated such a means of death as atonement. So
>I'll have to dis-agree with you here. It's not necessary to learn a system from
>a guru who practices the same system to criticize it.
The actual story of Ramanuja is as follows (paraphrased from Swami
Tapasyananda's "Sri Ramanuja: Life" :
Vishnu noticed that the scriptures were being misinterpreted in such a
way as to give people the idea that the jivas were actually the
Supreme Personality of Godhead, and therefore out of pride, they were
becoming wicked and perverse. So He incarnated as an Acharya, the son
of a Vedic Brahmana devotee.
Ramanuja ended up as a disciple of the Advaitist Yadava, whose
philosophy was actually signficantly different from Shankara. Over
time, Yadava found Ramanuja to be his best and brightest disciple.
However, a philosophical gap started to occur between them, as
Ramanuja had been steeped in devotion to the Supreme Personality of
Godhead while growing up, while Yadava denied the existence of same.
Yadava feared that Ramanuja would eventually become a full-blown
dualist, and a strong enemy of Advaita, so he hatched a plot to have
him murdered. Ramanuja escaped miraculously and returned to his
guru, who then continued to instruct him as a disciple. Sometime
later, one of Ramanuja's interpretations of the Upanishads so angered
Yadava that he asked Ramanuja to leave him and he obeyed.
Ramanuja then became the devotee, at various different times, of the 5
different disciples of the Vaishnava guru Yamuna, who had died as
Ramanuja was traveling to become his disciple.
One incident in Ramanuja's discipleship is interesting enough to be
imparted at this time. Ramanuja became a disciple of Gostipurna, who
after a time, imparted to him the highest and most powerful Vaishnava
Mantra, instructing him to never tell it to anyone else.
Well, the next thing that Ramanuja did was to go to a nearby temple,
gather everyone in the area around, and imparted the Mantra to all of
them.
When Gostipurna heard about this, he angrily ordered Ramanuja to his
side and denounced him. Ramanuja replied humblely that it would be a
blessing if a large number of people were saved through his being
consigned to hell. The compassion of Ramanuja touched Gostipurna's
heart and he prostrated before Ramanuja.
Namaskar,
Ken
kstuart@snowcrest.net
The message for 1996:
"Be filled with enthusiasm and sing God's glory!"
