[Advaita-l] Digest of Paramacharya's Discourses on Soundaryalahari (DPDS-55)

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004, V. Krishnamurthy wrote:

> The Sri VidyA tantra has several greatnesses of which one
> is the fact that it is the most concordant with the vedic
> route. Of course all the tantras can be adapted to the
> vedic route; but some of them do present obstacles to such
> vedic adaptation. So there is a necessity to speak of
> tantras which are concordant with vedic practices and which
> are not. It was our Acharya who established the pure vaidic
> pUjA and instilled life into it. It is true that even this
> pUjA contains some of the mantras which owe their origin
> to the tantra way. When he initiated the vaidic pUja
> rituals in connection with the upAsanA following the
> SriVidyA tantra, he followed only the samayAchAra
> discipline.
>

There are Buddhist, Jain and even Muslim tantras.  Amongst the "Hindu"
tantras there are many which teach things contrary to Vedic morality
(which is why to the man in the street, tantra == "black magic")  But it
is not the case that samayachara is the only Vedic tantric path.  A great
scholar like Shri Bhaskararaya insists that kaulachara can also be
concordant with Vedic practices and any apparently immoral tenets in it
are meant to be understood only symbolically.

Btw, there is another classification of the Shaiva shastras as follows:

* 10 Shiva Agamas which teach dvaita siddhanta
* 18 Rudra Agamas which teach a vishishtadvaita siddhanta

(These are the basis of Shaivasiddhanta, Kashmiri Shaivism etc.)

* 64 Bhairava Agamas or Tantras which teach advaita siddhanta.
* The Vamakeshvari Tantra which is the essence of these 64 and the basis
  of Shrividya.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
It's a girl! See the pictures - http://www.braincells.com/shailaja/