buddha and his teachings

[Ravisankar S. Mayavaram]

[Nanda's mail deleted]

I am not scared of buddhist philosophy or their practice. I want
this list to be used to discuss advaita vedanta taught by shrI
shankara and understand it deeply. Purpose is specific and
focussed. No disrespect is meant to the any other teacher. On
personal front, I respect saint and sages of all traditions. If
you want to follow them, I have no problem. Do not clutter this
list with the mail like this.

You should understand one thing. What your personal belief and
what the list is for. Whether buddha or christ is a jIvana mukta,
or whether their teachings are same as vedanta is of NO concern
to the List. It may or it may not. I rever them as great saints.
But I want this forum to be used only for discussing
advaita-vedanta. I have made LIST policy very clear.

If you can contribute to this effort, you are welcome. Otherwise
you and whosoever who want shrI buddha's teachings to be
discussed here remain silent. I have no time for dealing this. If
this repeats I will set those who write in these lines to NOPOST.
That means you can only receive mail and you can not post
directly.

I observe two things on the list. 1) People post on off topic
things.  2) People who just respond and make no postive
contribution. That to sometimes rudely.

Why can not we follow the example set by shrI Anand Hudli
(million thanks to his wonderful posts) and Vaidya for
vivekachUDAmaniH, to mention a few names. And contribute
positively to the purpose. May the little time spent on the list
be very useful.

Nanda:  Where is your integerity, after I have clearly stated the
purpose of the forum, why do you post this here, If you do not
agree with the list policy, this is not the place for you.

with respects
Ravi

>From  Mon Aug 17 20:38:21 1998
Message-Id: <MON.17.AUG.1998.203821.0400.>
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998 20:38:21 -0400
Reply-To: ramakris at erols.com
To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <ramakris at EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: New member introduction: shrI Subhanu Saxena
Comments: To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Anand Hudli wrote:

>  Now, there are some important sUktas or Vedic hymns which are
>  chanted by everyone regardless of the shAkhA. For example, the
>  GaNapati -atharva-shIrshha upanishhad, which obviously belongs to
>  the atharva veda, is chanted during GaNesha pUjA regardless of the
>  shAkhA of the person who is performing it. The Shri Rudram is also
>  one such hymn, I would say. There is a saying:
>
>  svashAkhopanishhad.h gItA viShNornAma sahasrakam.h |
>  rudraM cha paurushhaM sUktaM nityamAvartayet.h budhaH ||
>
>  The wise one should regularly (daily) repeat these: 1) the upanishhad
>  of one's own shAkhA, 2) the gItA, 3) the thousand names of Vishnu,
>  4) the Shri Rudram, and 5) the purushha sUkta.

Thanks for this explanation. I thought about this for some more time. It
certainly puts things in a new light (atleast for me). Where is this
passage from?

Avartayet.h above is the causative - optative isn't it? I am aware of
the word vartayati. I am assuming here that Avartayati from the root A +
vR^it or am I mistaken? A quick glance at Monier-Williams did not yield
any results. The root A + vR^it is given, but I couldn't track down it's
meaning. Anyway, I know the optative is interpreted as an imperative as
per mImA.nsA shAstra under certain circumstances. Is it the case here?

Why I am asking is that then the study of the above becomes and
injunction and hence becomes a nityakarma. I am afraid I do none of
these daily! If it's an injunction I can at least start chanting the
purushha sUkta daily. But then, maybe I can give the excuse that it's an
injunction only for the wise :-).

The other quote I gave is definitely an injunction for everyone.
kR^ishhNa yajvan in his mImA.nsA paribhAshhA (as does Mahasannidhanam)
interprets the statement as an injunction. I forgot to mention, the
previous quote svAdhyAyo.adhyetavyaH is from tattirIya AraNyaka 2.15.7
(source Swami Madhavananda).

>  Under this scheme, everyone must recite the Shri Rudram even if it is
>  not part of his own shAkhA. There is a Rudra sUkta in the R^ig Veda
>  but I suspect when one says Shri Rudram, the hymn from the Yajur Veda
>  is what is meant, especially since it has the panchAxarI mantra
>  embedded in it.

Yes, I agree. The rudram cannot mean anything else. The purushha sUktam
is found in all vedas. I don't think that such is the case with rudram.

>  Extending the argument, if I may :-), I would say that any of the
>  important/popular sUktas/hymns may be learned or chanted
>  by anyone regardless of the shAkhA. Some more examples are the
>  shrI sUkta, the durgA sUkta, the devI sUkta (of the R^ig Veda), the
>  sarasvatI sUkta (also occurring in the R^ig Veda), the saura sUkta,
>  the VishNu sUkta, the GaNesha sUkta (of the R^ig Veda, my teacher
>  who is from the taittirIya shAkhA uses this one frequently in
>  gaNesha pUjA), the aruNa-prashna of the taittirIya shAkha, the
>  nArayaNa sUkta of the mahAnArayaNa upanishhad, the pancha rudrIya
>  of the same (that begins with "sadyojAtaM prapadyAmi..."), the
>  mantrapuShpam.h, and others.

Good extension :-).

So can we conclude that one's own shAkha must be studied, but even
without completing that these important mantras can be learnt? While
what you say sounds reasonable, I am still not 100% convinced. If the
above quote you gave belongs to a dharma shAstra of the yajurveda, then
the above conclusion may not be correct, since then both the sUktam and
the rudram are found in both, but the upanishhads are not common :-).

In any case I'll make it a point to verify this when I go to India the
next time.

Rama