[Advaita-l] True scholarship

[Sudhanshu Shekhar]

Hari Om,

The whole problem arises because of pramANatva of shabda. If the modern
scholars do not accept shabda-pramANa, they cannot explain Upanishad and
Brahma Sutra. If they accept shabda-pramANa, they have to per force become
absolute orthodox. So, their approach towards karma-kANDa is quite self
contractory.

Sudhanshu.

On Fri 13 Sep, 2019, 12:28 Bhaskar YR via Advaita-l, <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

>
> "He was a man with liberal and rational outlook. He held women in high
> esteem and taught them vedic mantras and performances of rituals".
>
> Could this be taken as a precedent/pramANa for today's times w.r.t women
> studying the Vedas given your Guruji's orthodoxy and scholarship?
>
>
> praNAms
> Hare Krishna
>
> IMHO, if someone is scholar and analytical in his approach towards
> traditional practices, he cannot be a strict orthodox.  And someone else
> though is a master (scholar) of shAstra and vidhi (injunction) he wants to
> be within the boundaries of tradition without asking about its
> applicability in modern day world  in the fear of being called as
> asaMpradAyavAdi.  So, scholars like this donot want to be critical about
> the traditional practices though they think some are outdated or need some
> amendments depending on desha, kAla and deha dharma.  Some religious /
> spiritual institutions like Chinmaya mission, Arsha vidya gurukulam,
> rAmakrishna order etc. come under first category,  hardly care about some
> of the traditional injunctions / practices though,  they give lot of
> respect to bonafide traditional Amnaya mutts and their practices.  Women /
> non-dvija-s  chanting / learning veda mantra-s, initiating other varNa-s
> and women to  sannyasa, the vedic rituals by non-dvija-s / avarNi-s etc.
> are some of the bold contribution by these organizations against the
> tradition.  And for that matter even Amnaya mutts, though being aware of
> these unorthodox practices by these institutions do not openly ask / put
> questions when the 'heads' meet the Amnaya peetAdhipati-s and these heads
> being honored in orthodox Amnaya mutts for their contributions to vedAnta
> when their approach to dharma shAstra vidhi-s (karma kAnda) is quite
> questionable.
>
> In the books like antyeshti / shrAddha Sri Srikanta Kumaraswamy openly
> questions the traditional beliefs based on purANa-s like garuda and says
> shrAddha ritual observed by sons has nothing to do with departed souls it
> is only for the chitta shuddhi of the kartru and it is the ruNa (liability)
> that has to be cleared by the kids of deceased parents.  And as above, he
> freely allows the stree-s to do vedAdhyayana and allow them to perform
> vedic rituals by chanting the vedic mantra-s.  No need to mention these are
> all quite against the traditional stand but quite acceptable when it is
> viewed from the scholarly analytical person who has no obligation to tie
> himself within the orthodox tradition.
>
> Just few of my thoughts.
>
> Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
> bhaskar
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