[Advaita-l] Worship

[jagannathan mahadevan]

namaskAram,

Thank you very much for the explanations. I am very interested to know
more and read about Sri Sankara's devotional hymns. Devotion or
bhakthi has a wide appeal to all irrespective of the level of
understanding and is also easily expressed. Does Acharya praise the
various qualities of the deity in each hymn? It will be enthralling to
see the deity through his words. Kindly also provide me with any
internet based resource for the devotional hymns by Sri Sankara.

Sincerely,
Jagan.

> pUjA need not necessarily be for only one deity. In the panchAyatana pUjA
> which is very common, pUjA to five deities, GaNeSa, SUrya, VishNu, Siva, and
> Devi is performed. Actually these are not to be looked upon as totally
> different. They are all worshipped as different aspects of the supreme
> Brahman. Sri Sankara, in his devotional hymns, treats the particular deity
> to whom a hymn is addressed as the highest. In SubrahmaNya bhujanga he says
> that he knows no God other than SubrahmaNya. In Saundaryalahari he praises
> Devi as supreme. In SivAnandalahari Siva is said to be supreme. The idea is
> that all these deities are really the one supreme Being. Every one can
> choose his ishTa devata, favourite deity, for worship. Merely because there
> are pictures or vigrahas of many deities on the altar it is not necessary
> that pUjA should be done for each of them.
>
> Generally pUjA is not done for living saints, but disciples may choose their
> own ways of worshipping their guru.
> S.N.Sastri
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