Search:
Bhakti List Archives

Re: Lakshmi

From the Bhakti List Archives

Mani Varadarajan • August 26, 1998 


Raghu Mudumba wrote:
> Elders say Lakshmi is Concept and not a figure.
> Raghu RD

Dear Raghu,

If this were the case, then all problems are solved
in the philosophical interpretation of Lakshmi and Narayana.
I may be wrong -- I will have to go check -- but I am pretty
sure that Vedanta Desika argues against the idea that Lakshmi
and Narayana are "aspects" or "concepts" of one another.
The reference here is Desika's catuh-SlokI-bhAshya.

He does not reduce Lakshmi to God perceived in female
form.  For Desika, Narayana is God, and Lakshmi is God's
"patni" or eternal consort, representing two distinct
but inseparable realities. Desika quotes the vAkya from
the purusha-sUkta "hrIS ca te lakshmIS ca patnyau" in
support of his argument.

I will research this further to be certain.

Mani