Vedic Religion

[Shrisha Rao]

Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian wrote:

> >From the above we can gauge two things. All bhAshyakaras till Ramanuja
> maintained that the pA.ncarAtra was unvedic. Not only that, even that
> pA.ncarAtra philosophy has no connection with the vishishhTAdvaitic

I'm no authority on the Pancharatra, much less on Vishishtadvaita, but
just a couple of remarks here.  It seems unfair to accuse Ramanuja of
having elevated "unvedic" texts as part of an [allegedly] Vedic
tradition, when said texts have been lauded greatly in the
Mahabharata, and also in the Yajur Veda, which is the putative
"earliest" source of the world `paJNcharAtrA' itself (cf. Schrader,
F.O., `Introduction to Pancharatra and the Ahirbudhnya Samhita').  The
accusation that the Pancharatra contains nonsense such as creation of
jIva-s, and also criticism of Vedas, has been dealt with by Ramanuja's
predecessor Yamuna (cf. Varadachari, V., `Agamas and South Indian
Vaishnavism'), who observes that (i) the Pancharatra text where the
"creation of jIva-s" theory is apparently found itself repudiates that
theory in another location, showing that such is not its intent; and
(ii) _apparently_ nonsensical statements are not wanting in other
accepted texts; and finally (iii) apparent criticism of the Vedas is
also to be found in the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, and in some
cases in the Vedas themselves.  Of course, these arguments of Yamuna
may have been refuted, but I'm not aware that they were.

Regards,

Shrisha Rao

> Rama
>From ADVAITA-L at LISTS.ADVAITA-VEDANTA.ORG Sun Aug  1 09:04:02 1999
Message-Id: <SUN.1.AUG.1999.090402.0500.ADVAITAL at LISTS.ADVAITAVEDANTA.ORG>
Date: Sun, 1 Aug 1999 09:04:02 -0500
Reply-To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at LISTS.ADVAITA-VEDANTA.ORG>
To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at LISTS.ADVAITA-VEDANTA.ORG>
From: Vaidya Sundaram <Vaidya_Sundaram at I2.COM>
Subject: New Member introduction: Thaatchaayini Kananatu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

--------- Forwarded by Vaidya Sundaram/Dallas/US/i2Tech on 08/01/99 09:04 AM
--------

Hello,

This is a short introduction about myself. My name is Thaatchaayini
Kananatu. I have been reading literature on Vedanta and Advaita since I was
15 ( I am now 23). I became engrossed in the Vedanta philosophy after coming
across The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. I am also an ardent devotee
of Sri Ramakrishna, and have been initiated by one of the monks at the
Ramakrishna Order in Belur Math. I am eager to learn more about Vedanta, as
there are some aspects that I cannot fully comprehend.

Otherwise, Ive just finished my degree in law in UK. After two years of
study there, Im back in Malaysia ( where I am originally from).

Im not quite sure what sort of introduction you were looking for, I hope
this would suffice.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Miss Thaatchaayini Kananatu

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com