respect to acharyas

From the Bhakti List Archives

• October 2, 1995


THis following included message contains some references with questionable
appropriateness to an acharya of visistadvaita, Azaghiasinger.  I would request the netters on
this group to follow some protocol when addressing a sanyasi - which ever
faction or sect or religion that sanyasi belongs to.


coming to the point of ishwara and god issue, Swamy azhagia singer
 definitely has a point.
One has to go deeper into the authoritative texts such as prasthana trayas
to evaluate impartially the terminology such as "ishwara" "ishaana", "mahadeva"
etc.  since this subject is very vast. One might read a complete chapter on it
in SMS chari's book vaishnavism.  or Filloziat's "varadaraja panchasat" where
with detailed shruti and smrithi references the issue has been resolved.

in this network the very same topic has been discussed in earlier conversations.

the essence is that the term "Narayana" denotes the ultimate as per the 
shastras.  Vyasa's quote might be helpful to us here - " alodya sarva
shasthraani vicharya cha muhur muhuhu. idamekam sunishpannam dhyeyo 
narayanaha sadaa"  - 

which means " after contemplating on all the shastras and re examining it
several often one thing stands out clear (for humanity)- one should always 
meditate on "narayana".

Acharya Vedanta desika goes into great details in "Rahasya traya sara" 
reasoning out that even terms such as "vishnu", "vasudeva" etc. are not
as emphatic and rigorous in denoting the ultimate as much as the term
"Narayana" denotes.

By the way even terms such as "Rudra", "Sambhu" etc. does denote the ultimate
in the upanishads  such as svetasvetara and atharva shika upanishads respectively. it depends on the context.

But in vishnu saharsa nama - "ishvara uvaacha" denotes to parvati pati siva
only (spouse of parvati)  ( note the term manorame in srirama rama rameti
rame raame manorame, means  (my beloved) which is usually used by a husband
to wife, atleast in our respectable smritis!!).  and ishwara is according to mythology and shastras a "created entity" ie. not the "primal cause". siva or ishwara was created 
by "4 faced bramha" who is the first born.  by a rule, created entity is not the
ultimate according to shastras.  Even Sankaracharya accepts this issue.
One has to read up details regarding these in texts from any of these acharyas.
please refer to FYI on this issue for details.  


----- Begin Included Message -----

>From krish@astro.ge.com Mon Oct  2 09:09:23 1995
From: krish 
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 1995 07:41:21 -0400
To: prapatti@srirangam.esd.sgi.com
Subject: Re: Isvaran


Mr. Algiya Singer seems to be twisting, a right he certainly possesses. Easwara
replies Parvathis's querry. Now Parvathi need not be Easwara's consort,
per Singar.
One cannot understand the concern of Vishnu or Iswara. This is starting to
be like my Christian friend's statement about the only truth and only God.
For every Vaishnava Statement about Vishnu, there is a corresponding one
about Shiva. Whether there is a grain of truth, depends on the devotee!


----- End Included Message -----