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But why does the Ramakrishna Mutt swami not be faithful
to Sankara when he is translating the words? Why bowdlerize
the great Sankaracharya?
In my opinion, this is sheer dishonesty.
> It's not atypical to see
> vaishnavite schools waving their hands wildly when it comes to animal
> sacrifices by ad hoc reasonings like not suited for kali yuga etc, when
> none of the shruti-s or smR^iti-s say so. The advaitic school and
> Vivekananda do not do any such thing.
Neither does the most serious Vaishnava Vedanta school,
i.e., that of Ramanuja.
At any rate, that is not the point. Those schools that
``wave their hands'' about animal sacrifice _do_ have a
textual and philosophical basis for doing so, and are not
being dishonest.
> Everyone has some things they don't like which
> they try to explain away.
In this discussion, I am not trying to be an apologist
for Vaishnava Vedanta. I am trying to point out the
difference in approach between traditional scholarship,
such as that of Sankara, Ramanuja, and their followers,
and the lightweight and half-baked scholarship of
neo-Hinduism. The difference is like night and day.
The former boldly face their sacred texts; the latter are
ashamed of many of them.
Counter quotations from Hare Krishna interpretations do not
count here. I am not defending them either.
> IMO, you are just trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. How a
> husband should beat his wife if she refuses to have sex with him is
> hardly relevant these days.
This seems apparent to us, but is the Ramakrishna Mutt swami
only supposed to translate those parts he thinks are relevant,
in a purportedly complete translation? Why does he translate
the other ritualistic portions that are also completely
irrelevant to Modern Man?
Why didn't Sankaracharya, the finest Advaitin the world
has ever seen, declare these passages irrelevant and not comment
upon them? Perhaps he wanted to be faithful to the Veda?
IMHO, it is extremely hypcritical to conclude that certain
passages of the Veda and commentary are ``hardly relevant''
and at the same claim to follow the footsteps of Sankaracharya.
Since we do not even have the translation of the Acharya's
words, we non-Sanskrit speakers cannot evaluate what value
Sankara placed on these sections of the text.
I would rather evaluate for myself than let a modern
translator censor it for me.
Mani
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