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

[D.V.N.Sarma డి.వి.ఎన్.శర్మ]

One more peculiarity of Sri venkateswara idol is the nagabharana on the
arms.

A Saiva temple that has been converted into Vaishnava Kshetra by
Ramanujacharya is Simhachalam near Visakhapatnam.
Even today the idol is a linga on which  a varaha is sculpted in relief.
The original idol is covered with sandal paste and is displayed in its
original form only once in an year.
Another anomaly is it is called a Narasimhakshetra the diety being called
VarahaNrisimhaswamy(!).

regards,
Sarma.

On Mon, Feb 26, 2018 at 3:01 PM, Aditya Kumar via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

>  Mysteriously, we do not have any accounts from the Shaivite (or was it
> Cholas?) kings. We do not even know the name of this king or any of the
> details. We have only one sided narrative which is always biased.
>
>     On Monday 26 February 2018, 2:44:25 PM IST, V Subrahmanian <
> v.subrahmanian at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  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'.
> regardssubbu
>
> 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.
>
>
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