[Advaita-l] Bhakti in Advaita Tradition

[SIVAKUMAR RAMAKRISHNAN]

SAdara pranAmam,
There have been many jeevanmukthAs who could guide us on intriguing
problems like this.Sri Ramana maharshi,Jagadgurus in the Sringeri and Kanchi
paramparAs
are example. From there own 'experiances' of the absolute they have already
given
clear answers to many of these questions.Is n't it enough to give ear to
what
they have said just out of compassion to the ignorant one like us?
On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 11:12 AM, Satish Arigela <satisharigela at yahoo.com>wrote:

>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Rajaram Venkataramani <rajaramvenk at gmail.com>
>
> >I think Sankara is Vaishnava and Vishnu is not only the four-handed deity)
>
> When we call someone as vaiShNava, in textual terms, it usually refers to
> an
> individual who has vaiShNava dIkSha.
>
> Similarly shaiva & shAkta. Being a viShNu bhakta does not automatically
> make you
> a vaiShNava in the same way as being a shiva bhakta does not make you a
> shaiva.
>
> So shankara is a smArta brAhmaNa who is devoted to viShNu.
>
> To make you see wider, I will also mention to you that one can be shaiva
> technically and be devoted to viShNu or any other devata. What this
> statement
> means: This means that the individual has shaiva dIkSha i.e. according to
> the
> shaiva Agama-s and considers shiva as supreme. He does shaiva sandhya etc
> but
> his favorite upAsya devata is viShNu or nArAyaNa. See! Here we have someone
> very
> much devoted to viShNu but is technically a shaiva. This is not unusual.
>
> Likewise, shankara happens to be a smArta(meaning his ritual frame work,
> world
> view etc are smArta) but his favorite devata is viShNu and hence calling
> him a
> vaiShNava will be inaccurate.
>
> There was a time when I aggressively argued that prapa~nchasAra,
> saundaryalahari  etc were by shankara, but these days I take my words back.
>
> A look at some of his works shows that shankarAchArya will not go anywhere
> near
> that stuff. He either does not care about mantra shAstra or he is just
> completely ignorant of tAntrIka mantra shAstra.
>
> Either these works were authored by later shankarAchArya-s who
> deviated(certainly a wise thing to do) from Adi shankara on this point(i.e.
> on
> the upAsana of various tAntrIka devata-s shrIvidyA lalitA etc) or the
> shankara
> tradition just appropriated tAntrIka works and added Adi shankara's name.
> But i
> would like to beleive that the former is the case.
> _______________________________________________
> Archives: http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/
> http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.culture.religion.advaita
>
> To unsubscribe or change your options:
> http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/advaita-l
>
> For assistance, contact:
> listmaster at advaita-vedanta.org
>



-- 
*sivakumarr*