[Advaita-l] Is Tirupati's Balaji a Buddhist deity (Avalokiteshwara)?

[V Subrahmanian]

On a somewhat similar note it would not be incorrect to say that while the
followers of Ramanuja accuse some Shaivite King as having persecuted
Ramanuja by forcing him to convert to Shaivism, Ramanuja too do the same
though in a different way. While he could not tolerate the several
Upanishads that unequivocally say Shiva as the Jagatkāraṇam, Ramanuja gave
a twist to those names and forced a Vaishnava meaning on them with the sole
view of seeing that no scripture contradicts his pet theory of 'Vishnu
alone is Supreme'.

regards
subbu

On Mon, Feb 26, 2018 at 2:29 PM, Aditya Kumar via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

>  Thanks for the excerpt, was a good read. Although I admit that the author
> is biased, the key issues raised are indeed plausible.
> There are many similar themes in Buddhism and Vaishnavism - - Both are
> sects that revolted against orthodoxy- Equality of women and Shudras (on
> par with any high priest)- Both embraced the vernacular languages- Both
> have borrowed extensively from/rely on the agamas- Both endorse an
> oversimplified approach (against rituals/bhakti)- Both sects preach
> exclusive/supremacist philosophy (Buddha is the only way, Vishnu is the
> only true god)
> I am sure there are many similarities and I have not even touched the
> socio-political history because it's outside the scope of this forum. I am
> not saying this is a bad thing. So what if Vaishnavism and Buddhism are
> similar? I believe we are already a liberal society where women are given
> sanyasa, foreigners are chanting rudram, no matter how coarsely. We have
> even somehow accepted that Buddha was an incarnation of Vishnu.
> The core theme being similar, it might have been possible that Sri
> Ramanujacharya converted all Buddhist places of worship into Vaishnava
> ones. That was probably why he was exiled from the country? He was the
> actual pracchanna bauddha! From a psychological point of view, it is common
> for a thief to accuse the accuser as a thief(please note, this is just an
> example. I am not saying Sri Ramanujacharya was a thief! or a liar!). So in
> turn, the Vaishnavas branded the Shankarites as pracchanna Bauddhas.
> Interestingly, Ramanujacharya found a solace in Hoysala kingdom whose king
> was a Jaina.
> Afterall, whether Buddhism or Vaishnavism, everyone were vying for
> political patronage. Post the demise of Buddhism in India, it entered
> through a backdoor called Vaishnavism - a different name/form but
> essentially the same philosophy at it's core. It's only after Ramanuja that
> pancharatra school became a sub-school within Vedanta and the Sri
> Vaishnavas were considered Brahmins! Whether Vaishnavism considers Vedas as
> pramana or not is immaterial because their interpretation is completely
> different (one god supreme).
> Please pardon/ignore if you found this to be spiteful. Purely academic
> interest.
>
>