[Advaita-l] discussion about panchayatan puja

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

"Abhishek RK" <rkabhi at gmail.com> wrote:

>Also I had the impression that the samhita, brahmana and aranyaka are
>usually put in karma-kanda. I request the members to correct me here if I 
>am
>wrong.

Many people are confused about this. The confusion vanishes if we simply 
stop thinking of the Vedas as a "book" in the modern sense of the word.

It is not as if there are well-defined sections internal to the vedas, with 
a self-proclamation, "here ends the karmakanda" or "here begins the 
jnanakanda". In fact, in the taittirIya branch, there is no clear 
distinction between even the mantra and brAhmaNa portions as they are found 
interspersed with each other.

Whether a given passage is karmakANDa or upAsanAkANDa or jnAnakANDa has to 
be understood with respect to understanding the content of the passage. At 
its base, it is very simple, as the classification refers mainly to the 
thrust of the passage. Does it teach action,either directly or through 
inference, or does it teach a particular mode of worship/meditation (e.g. 
pancAgni-vidyA), or does it only teach knowledge (e.g. ayam AtmA brahma)? 
This mode of classifying the subject matter of the veda is often independent 
of samhitA, brAhmaNa, AraNyaka distinctions in the title headings of the 
sections of the veda.

It is very counter-productive to dismiss karmakANDa offhand. Most of us are 
not at the stage where we are ready to renounce action. So long as we are 
bound by our common desires, for home, money, name, fame, children, property 
and so long as we are ruled by our anger, jealousy, envy, lust, avarice, we 
have to pay proper attention to the karmakANDa. And we notice that even the 
rare individuals who have risen above these do pay attention to the 
karmakANDa, in order to preserve the tradition and to guide us.

Regards,
Vidyasankar

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