[Advaita-l] vedic yajna

[Venkatesh Murthy]

Namaste

On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 3:11 PM, Bhaskar YR <bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com> wrote:
> praNAms
> Hare Krishna
>
> Yes Adi Sankara is greatest authority for Vedanta but he went from
> Brahmacharya to Sanyasa. His knowledge of rituals would be theoretical
> not practical. In ritualistic acts he can repeat what he heard from
> others but not from personal experience.
>
>>  This line of argument, in my opinion, somehow not convincing!!  Yes,
> shankara does not practically performed hOma havana but he is shAstra
> vetta ( a sarvajna in shAstra & dharma shAstra vichAra) and know very well
> the intricacies & subtleties of ritualistic part of veda-s i.e. karma
> kAnda.  Hence he approached mandana mishra for the debate.  I dont think
> one has to practically burn his hands to know the fire power:-))
> In many texts they say Madhuparka must have meat in it. But today in
> practice there is no
> meat in Madhuparka. Theory is sometimes not same as practice.
>
>>  Yes, but theory (veda & smruti texts in this case) is what stand as
> pramANa in karma/dharma jignAsa.
>

This line of argument is faulty.  If only theory is known and practice
is different from theory there is no use of this theory. If theory is
saying Madhuparka must have meat and practice is saying Madhuparka
does not have meat it is clear practice is the winner of the contest.
Adi Sankara may have studied Mimamsa theory but when practice is
different we cannot take the theory words as direct meaning. We have
to take indirect meaning to satisfy the practice. He said Bull Meat
but in practice there is no Bull meat. Also in practice we know to
make son learned he must study hard. He will not become learned
because his father ate meat and impregnated his mother.

>
> A Brahmachari Sannyasi cannot be writing from experience how to eat Bull
> meat and get a wife pregnant with a learned son.
>
>>  One can argue that he had that experience during the parakAya pravesha
> :-)) A saNyAsi's mind was very much there in king's body to experience the
> gruhasthAshrama dharma in general & kAma shAstra in particular.
>
That Parakaya Pravesha incident was later than writing the Bhashya.
But the Parakaya Pravesha proves experience is the best teacher.

> Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
> bhaskar



-- 
Regards

-Venkatesh