[Advaita-l] On the word "nArAyaNa"

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Thanks. That was interesting. But in case anyone didn't understand the
original motivation behind this it is as follows: narAyaNa is a proper
noun so it refers to the particular God and cannot refer to any other
God. But all other words can be interprted figuratively to mean
vishhNu. This is against the smaarta theory ALL followers of sha.nkara
belong to.

The problem is as follows:

1. If that be the case ot should be a sin to name anyone nArAyaNa. How
can a jiva residing in a body be refered to by this name? Clearly no
such rule is met in smR^itis.

2. If the word nArAyaNa is indeed so special, how come it occurs zero
times in R^ig veda, 0 times in yajur samhita and 0 times in yajur
braahmaNa? It occurs only in the last prashna of the taittiriiya
aaraNyaka.

3. These discussions are on ***classical sanskrit***. When we see the
nirukta and nighaNTu, yaaska has a list of names signifying the
supreme aatman. I can get the relevant quotations tomorrow, but
naaraayaNa or any other name of vishhNu do NOT figure in it.
Interesting shambhu - a name of shiva - does figure in the list.

4. None of the classical authors like Madhva, and I don't think even
Ramanuja, refer to this convoluted interpretation.

The point is this: Some over-eager people are trying to come up with
covoluted theories to satisfy themselves. It's hard not to
psycho-analyze, perhaps they are feeling inferior in their position.
They would be best served reading some classical works (for example
Madhva) and seeing what they have to say reagrding this issue. Instead
of conducting long winded discussions on classical Sanskrit, they
should also refer to the nirukta and nighaNTu - the last word (pun
intended) on Vedic words. Finally, although needless to say, this
wildly nonsensical theory has no support from sha.nkara.

Rama

On 6/11/06, Annapureddy Siddhartha Reddy <annapureddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Namaste all,
>          Here are some links that might be of interest. A friend has
> sent me links to these discussions on the Sanskrit list.
>
> hari OM.
>
> A.Siddhartha.
>
> It starts here:
> http://mailman.cs.utah.edu/pipermail/sanskrit/2004-September/000774.html
>
> After some discussion, I posted a query here:
> http://mailman.cs.utah.edu/pipermail/sanskrit/2004-September/000778.html
>
> A mail supporting the "proper noun" i.e samgyApada explanation was posted
> here
> http://mailman.cs.utah.edu/pipermail/sanskrit/2004-September/000787.html
>
> A more complex explanation by the same person is given here
> http://mailman.cs.utah.edu/pipermail/sanskrit/2004-September/000791.html
>
> Further question by Mani Varadarajan
> http://mailman.cs.utah.edu/pipermail/sanskrit/2004-September/000797.html
>
> Response to that query
> http://mailman.cs.utah.edu/pipermail/sanskrit/2004-September/000815.html