[Advaita-l] RE: On the parakAyapraveSa legend about Sankara

[Amuthan]

namo nArAyaNAya!

On 3/27/07, S Jayanarayanan <sjayana_at_yahoo.com> wrote:
> In this context, it is relevant to point out that the Vishnu Purana
> speaks of Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, as having several wives,
> and also narrates the story of Krishna "kidnapping" Rukmini to marry
> her, even begetting a son (by name of Pradyumna) by her. Is it
> conceivable that Vishnu Purana's portrayal of Krishna is "stupid or
> "criminal"-like (two words which have been used in this list to
> describe Sankara's portrayal in the SD) because Krishna, the Supreme
> Lord himself, is said to have begotten sons after kidnapping a chaste
> lady?

i don't think this is a proper argument. rukmiNi *wanted* to marry
kRShNa. she was not very happy with the fact that her brother rukmi
had made all arragements for marrying her to shishupAla. so, she
specifically sent a request to kRShNa through a brAhmaNa asking him to
come and 'save' her. (this is known from shrImad bhAgavatam. i'm not
sure if the story is the same in viShNu purANa, but i'm assuming that
to be the case.)

the case here is different. AchArya was a saMnyAsi as against kRShNa
who maintained gRhastAshrama. there is absolutely no reason to suppose
that AchArya, a paramahamsa saMnyAsi, would do a parakAyapravesha in
order to learn the intricacies of kAmashAstra. if it is replied that
such a knowledge was necessary for the debate, it is more reasonable
to suppose that AchArya would have given a very general refutation for
any kAmapravRtti based on smRti-s like 'mAtrAsparshAstu kaunteya
shItoShNasukhaduHkhadAH'. kAmashAstra is a small subset of the more
general phenomena of happiness arising because of a mAtrAsparsha
(sense-object contact). knowing fully well the depth of AchArya's
analysis in his bhAShya-s, it is beyond doubt that AchArya would be
more interested in negating the fundamental error that there is
happiness in external objects than wasting his time displaying his
yogasiddhIs for such a trivial cause. instead, he would have
redirected his opponent's attention to smRti-s like 'brahmasaMsparsham
atyantaM sukham ashnute', 'rasarvajaM raso.apyasysa paraM dRShTvA
nivartate', 'sukhamAtyantikaM yattadbuddhigrAhyamatIndriyam' etc.
which assert that the source of happiness is actually within and not
is some external object. taking all these into account, it seems very
likely that the parakAyapravesha story is a fabrication of author the
mAdhavIyasha~Nkaravijaya.

i wish all list members a very happy shrI rAma navami.

vAsudevaH sarvaM,
aparyAptAmRtaH.