[Advaita-l] manyu-sUktaM - as per dvaita siddhAnta

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 5:42 PM, Jaldhar H. Vyas via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
>
> I'm not arguing that one should go by conventional meanings only but
> rather who is capable of determining "esoteric" meanings?
>
> Shankaracharya in several places invokes the authority of sampradayavids.
> For instance in the introduxtion to chhandogyopaniShadbhAShya he states
> that his commentary is only a restatement of an earlier one.  (Anandagiri
> supplies the name of Dravidacharya as that earlier commentator.)  On the
> other hand there were several previous interpreters of aupanishadic thought
> such as Bhartrprapancha whose interpretations were rejected as not being
> according to sampradaya.  Thus we see that for Shankaracharya having an
> opinion on some Vedic text was not enough to be accepted, it had to follow
> a "tradition" of interpretation with specific principles.
>

Your question of who is capable of determining "esoteric" meanings has
shifted to form of new question -- who is capable of determining which
sampradAya is the correct "tradition".

It would be useless to fight on which sampradaaya is anterior to which
other sampradaaya. Often this was labored either based on fogy history
given to us by foreigners, or based on absence of references about other
pUrva-paxa sampradAya in sidhAnta texts (yes some takes this approach of
absence of evidence as evidence of absence! ). When we have explicit
apurusheya shruti's position itself about this matter, all those extraneous
criteria for determining which sampradAya is correct one, is pretty useless
and would be flawed if one uses.

To quote some;

In nArayaNa saMhita talks about the same topic ;

krtE bhAgavatAtsarvE vEdaccha puruShAstadhA | trEtAyAM
bhinnaviShayAH tatastrai vidhyAtAM batAH | tasmAdEkaH sarva vEdai
jnEyO vishNuH sanAtanaH | pUjyO yajnyEH sOpachAraidhyEyO vaMdhyaccha
sarvadA ||

(my rough translation – In Krta yuga, since all sAdakas are bhagvat
bhakatas, all vEda-s are bhagavat pratipAdaka only. In trEta, since some
sAdakas have other interest (other than vishNu), vEdas will bring jnyAna in
other subjects for them. However, since all vEdas have mukhya tAtparya in
vishNu only in all yugas, one has to do worship sanAthana vishNu with all
vEdas only)

maha-nArayana upanishad starts with description of "ambara madhE "(i.e
description of water ) and continues with description of the deity Who is
sarvOttama resting on the seprpent in the midst of this ambara. At the very
end, this Upanishad concludes with the assertion that 'tad Eva brahma
paramam kavInaam'. By qualifying the audience as "kavInAM" (a.k.a
jnyAni-s), this upanishad is quite clear on the fact that from the
beginning nature of  these "sampradayavits" and what is their position
regarding Brahman Vishnu (as Eva paraM etc). Also note the emphasis of
Eva-kAra and "paramaM" (if one were to sought that this is the description
of gOuNi-brahman and hence not mukhya brahman - kind of vaada)


Let's see what svayam pitA of vEdAnta "tradition", srI bhagavan Veda-Vyasa
Himself has to say in this regard -- in skAnda purANa there is a narration
about the circumstance which led Him to writing brahma-sUtra-s. Per this
narration, in kruta yuga, narAyaNa alone was known and worshiped as the
Supreme (again this matches with nArayaNOpansihad quote above). As time
passes how this bhagvat para meaning of vEdic text is deteriorated, and
upon request from brhamAdi dEvata-s He has to write sUtra-s to bring the
original bhagvat paratva to these texts.



> Does Dhirendra Tirtha follow this principle?  He does not.
>
>
Yes, he does. shrI dhIrEndra tirtha does this (i.e Vishnu-para bhOdakatva
of manyu sUkta) as per view held by "sampradAyavit" starting from
maha-nArayaNOpanisht times, also held by bhagavAn vyAsa from sUtra times,
and lastly as held by His own master in this kali age.

/SV