The importance of sampradaya

[ken knight]

--- riccardonova <riccardonova at LIBERO.IT> wrote:
>--
>
> Sorry but I do not understand what "Smarta" means,
> is a specific group of
> people ? Are you a Smarta by birth ? Some time ,
> being an european makes it
> difficolt to follow the list discussions, does any
> body knows if a Vedanta
> dictionary is available, is it possible to buy it
> online

Namaste,

You could get a copy of 'A Concise Dictionary of
Indian Philosophy' by John Grimes.  Published by SUNY.

This is a good 'half-way House' between a glossary and
a full dictionary.

However the context and intention of any one speaker
can never be fully defined by a book,

Best wishes


ken Knight

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>From  Thu Apr 25 09:15:02 2002
Message-Id: <THU.25.APR.2002.091502.0700.>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 09:15:02 -0700
Reply-To: venky at oreka.com
To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at LISTS.ADVAITA-VEDANTA.ORG>
From: "Venkatesh ." <venky at OREKA.COM>
Subject: Weekly page from Hindu Dharma: Astronomy and Astrology

This week's page from Hindu Dharma (see note at bottom) is "Astronomy and Astrology" from "Jyotisa". The original page can be found at http://www.kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part10/chap2.htm.

Next week, you will be emailed "Ancient Mathematical Treasties" (from "Jyotisa")

Best regards
for kamakoti.org


Venkatesh
(this email is being sent on an automated basis)

Astronomy and Astrology
from Jyotisa, Hindu Dharma

      Astronomy examines the position of the planets and other heavenly bodies. It does not concern itself with how they affect the life of the world or the individual. It is not its function to find out how far the celestial bodies are beneficial to us or how they may be made favourable to us. Such functions belong to astrology. Jyotisa includes both astronomy and astrology.

 Telling us about the results of performing a ritual at a given time, keeping in mind the position of the planets, the sun and the moon and the naksatras ( asterisms ), comes under the purview of astrology. The hours favourable to the performance of Vedic rites are determined according to calculations based on the movement of planets. All this entails mathematical work.

 The measurements of the place where a sacrifice is to be conducted (yajnabhumi) are based on certain stipulations. These must be strictly adhered to if the sacrifices is to yield the desired benefits. Mathematics developed in this way as a handmaid to the Vedic dharma.





Note:
Hindu Dharma is a translation of two volumes of the well known Tamil Book "Deivatthin Kural", which, in turn, is a book of 6 volumes that contains talks of His Holiness Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswathi Mahaswamiji of Kanchipuram. The entire book is available online at http://www.kamakoti.org/ .