[Advaita-l] Purusha and Stree

Jaldhar H. Vyas jaldhar at braincells.com
Sun Jun 3 22:40:53 CDT 2012


On Sun, 3 Jun 2012, Venkatesh Murthy wrote:

> Namaste
>
> I heard in one Pravachana by KS Narayanacharya he is saying we all are
> Strees only and Krishna is the only Purusha. We may be men but like
> women we are dependent on Him. Anybody dependent on another is Stree.
> Stree will always depend on Father in childhood, Husband in youth and
> Son in old age. Like this the men are always dependent on Vishnu. He
> is the Purusha. The men are all Strees only. They are men in name
> only.
>

This is the first time I've heard a South Indian mention it but it is a 
common tenet of North Indian varieties of Vaishnavism.  For instance the 
followers of Vallabhacharya maintain that all the Vaishnava saints indeed 
all bhaktas are incarnations of gopis who are the paradigms of bhakti. 
For the most part this is just a theological idea but in extreme cases 
some have become transvestites out of zeal to emulate the gopis.


> But in the Purusha Sukta there is a mantra 'Purusha EvedaGm Sarvam |
> yad Bhutam Yac Ca Bhavyam | '. 'Everything is Purusha That which was
> and That which is to be is Purusha'.
>
> If everything is Purusha there is No Stree at all.
>

At the stage where everything is purush there is no dvandvas like 
male-female at all.

> Which position is correct according to Advaita?
>

Neither.  You need to stop taking these things so literally.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>



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