[Advaita-l] Question on a short suurya namaskaaram

[S Jayanarayanan]

--- Ravi Mayavaram <ravi at ambaa.org> wrote:

> S Jayanarayanan wrote:
> > My Guruji was of the opinion that the sUrya namaskAra mantra
> was
> > not a prayer to sUrya per se, just as the durgA sUktam.h was
> > primarily to agni not to durgA per se.
> 
> Yes, most  of the verses in durgaa suuktam are addressed
> directly to 
> agni.

Yes, out of the total of 7 mantras, 5 *directly* praise agni,
while the last refers to Indra.

> But what tilts the durgAsUktam  as suuktam adoring devii
> is the 
> verse "tAmagnivarNam" -- please see the meaning at
> 

ONLY (and this cannot be emphasized more) the second mantra
refers to "durgAM devIM". There is hardly any "tilting" in favor
of the devI for the entire sUktam.h.

It is a stretch of the imagination to take the entire sUktam.h
as adoring the devI, when 6/7 verses -- a whopping 85% of the
mantras are praising agni and Indra!

> agni being the messenger, is understood and interpreted
> differently 
> according to context.  And most devata-s are invoked
> traditionally in 
> agni during sacrifices etc.
> 

Perhaps, but the primary deity of any sUktram.h is made clear by
the sheer number of the mantras in the sUktam.h praising that
deity. Take for instance the vishhNu sUktam.h or purushha
sUktam.h.

If someone wishes to adore the devI with this sUktam.h, that is
fine, but it is not very convincing that this sUktam.h is
primarily to the devI for that reason!

At Sabarimalai, verses from the Veda praising the "shAsta" are
recited to ayyappan. It so happens that the verses are referring
to the king, calling him "shAsta". The priests chose these
verses because the word "shAsta" is commonly used to refer to
ayyappan, but there really are no verses in the Vedas devoted to
ayyappan. But if you ask a devotee there, they will insisit that
references to ayyappan are found throughout the Vedas :-)

-Kartik


		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. 
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail