[Advaita-l] Notes on sha.nkaras usage of vishhNu, iishvara, etc.

[M. S. Ravisankar]

I recently saw a quotation (while studying chamakam[1]), which said that
among the devata-s agni is the lowest and vishhNu is the highest [2]. This
was used in the context of agnAvishhNu in the starting of chamakam -saying
that the term agnAvishhNu  represents all devata-s starting from the lowest
to the highest.

Should this be interpreted differently?

TIA.

Ravi

[1] Book on mahaanyaasam published by mylapore veda adhyayana sabha. It is
good book (Sanskrit+Tamil) and distributed free of charge. They also have
very nice booklets on brahma yaj~na, upAkarma etc.

[2] http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/etcs/ind/aind/ved/rv/ab/ab001.htm





> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian [mailto:balasr at yahoo.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 10:35 AM
> To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
> Subject: [Advaita-l] Notes on sha.nkaras usage of vishhNu, iishvara,
> etc.
>
>
> brahman. However, they too accept that all forms such
> as shiva, vishhNu, etc., are all equal and do not
> accept any gradation of deities. Gradation of deities
> is an un-vedic concept adopted by some later
> quasi-vedantic schools.