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Re: Animal-killing and Soul-merging condemned
In article <4fj6al$klg@babbage.ece.uc.edu>,
Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu> wrote:
>>vijaypai@mandolin.rice.edu (Vijay Sadananda Pai)
>>Thank you, Ramakrishnan. You referred to an "ISKCON homepage on Shankara"
>>and instead produced some tract written by the Gaudiya Vaisnava Society
>>instead.
>By an "ISKCON" page I obviously meant an "ISKCON" related page. Say
>I refer to the Ramana Maharishi homepage in Canada. It's not maintained by
>Ramana. However I think it can be referred to as the Ramana homepage.
On the contrary, what you said would be parallel to taking some
statement by Ramana about Sankara and then attributing the statement
to Srngeri Matha. In case it isn't patently clear, you'll notice that
that article doesn't say it is either by ISKCON or ISKCON-related; it says
it is by _the Gaudiya Vaishnava Society_.
>Also
>ISKCON and Ramana have a wide enough following to justify such usage. I think
>it's definitely ISKCON related (whether you agree or not) and so do some other
>ISKCON members.
The GVS is neither ISKCON nor a subsidiary of ISKCON; the two
have a common acharya lineage through Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati and
his predecessors. So, anything printed in _Clarion Call_ isn't
necessarily ISKCON-related, as undoubtedly the teachings of the two
schools do differ (otherwise there wouldn't be two schools, right?).
GVS may frequently cite Srila Prabhupada, but that doesn't mean they
are ISKCON, any more so than RK mission suddenly becomes part of Ahobila
Matha by writing biographies about Ramanuja (note to any GVS readers: I
am not trying to slight your society here -- I am just drawing the first
comparison to come to mind; sorry if it came across poorly)
I have utmost personal respect for the maintainer of that page
[although I have also seen some flaws in the biographies listed there
and would perhaps show a different set of pics there] -- he has
invited me to dinner at his place on several occasions (and, had I had
better facilities, I would have undoubtedly reciprocated). As a
result, I know him perhaps better than the "ISKCON members" you refer
to, and I know that he is not currently an ISKCON member. Now, of course,
neither am I, so the question might arise "How can you claim that any
of your pages are ISKCON-related", to which I answer that for my first --
the Houston temple page -- I was explicitly commissioned by the temple
president to produce such a page; and the second, the HKIndex, is just
a limb of the first.
>I have great respect for Vidya's knowledge and the effort he has taken in
>putting together the Advaita page. However his opinions are by no means the
>last word on Advaita and it's history.
Fine, but realize that until the Advaita tradition agrees on its own history
it cannot possibly fault other schools for agreeing with one subtradition
within its history...
>It is quite probable that the verse allegedly referring to Shankara, in the
>Paadma puraanaa exists only in the copies from Vaishnavite regions.
It is indeed possible, just as it is possible that other verses attributed
to PP exist only in smarta or Shaivite communities, etc.
