[Advaita-l] Names and forms of Iswara

[V Subrahmanian]

Thank you Sada ji, for posting Sri Vidyasankar ji's very apt delineation of
the theme of names and forms of Brahman.  I recall the Sāyana bhāṣya for
the Narayana sukta where he explicitly says that 'it is not any
mūrti-viśeṣa', that is, the 'Narayana' of that sūkta is not any formed
deity but the Upanishadic Nirguna Brahman.

warm regards
subbu

On Sun, Jun 18, 2017 at 8:17 PM, kuntimaddi sadananda via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> PraNAms
> There have been a lot of discussion on the Vishnu and Shiva and on Shree
> Ramanuja, in the past. This year is supposed to be a celebration of 1000
> years of the birth of Shree Ramanuja, or Ramanuja Tirunakshatram. Today I
> am going to talk about 'Sharanaagati'; both from Vaishnava's point as well
> as from Advaita point.  I found a beautiful article by Vidyaji responding
> to some comments almost 20 years ago, on Bhakti list -I am taking the
> liberty to post here, with my salutations to Vidya.
> Hari Om!Sadananda---------------From: Vidyasankar Sundaresan (
> vidya_at_cco.caltech.edu)
> Date: Thu Sep 11 1997 - 10:15:03 PDT
>
>
> To the best of my knowledge, advaita AcAryas have not entered into a
>
> discussion along the lines raised by you at all. From a grammatical
>
> viewpoint, just as Siva, gaNeSa etc. have etymological meanings, as
>
> auspiciousness, lord of the gaNas, etc. the name nArAyaNa also has such a
>
> meaning, i.e. support/refuge of all men. In other words, in the Sanskrit
>
> language, these names can all serve as common nouns. So it is not as if
>
> some are exclusively common nouns and some exclusively proper nouns.
>
>
>
> In the vedArthasangraha, SrI rAmAnujAcArya draws attention to the
>
> taittirIya AraNyaka, and says that nArAyaNa represents the cause, while
>
> Siva, indra and others represent the level of effects. If I remember the
>
> text right, he also includes the name vishNu in the level of effects. As
>
> far as the advaitin is concerned, there can be no objection to this
>
> statement, but it should be pointed out that in advaita, the ultimate
>
> cause is the nirguNa brahman. We say that name and form do not
>
> characterize the parabrahman, so that anything with form is in the level
>
> of effects. Therefore, while advaitins will also say that nArAyaNa is the
>
> cause, they de-emphasize the form, i.e. the four-armed,
>
> sleeping-on-AdiSesha, holding-conch-and-discus form is still a form, and
>
> therefore on the level of effects. According to us, the essential nature
>
> of nArAyaNa is not all this, but pure consciousness. Now, the essential
>
> nature of any jIva is also pure consciousness, and realization of this
>
> constitutes moksha. Moreover, this pure consciousness is beyond name or
>
> form, so it does not matter much to advaitins whether It is called
>
> nArAyaNa or sadASiva. Both names refer to the same reality, but different
>
> sages call it by different names. That is why, philosophical debates
>
> aside, almost any advaita teacher will say that the essentially formless
>
> One takes on form, in order to bless the devotee. The only thing to
>
> remember is that this taking on of form is not an ultimately "real" event,
>
> so that it does not limit the Lord at all.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Vidyasankar
>
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