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SRIMATHE RAMANUJAYA NAMAHA.
This is with reference to the mails that I received in
response to my posting on anya devatha.
I take particular reference to letters sent by Sri
Kannan (a section of it is given below )
-------------------------------------------------------
Let us not mix up the three statements that are
succinctly distinct: 
1.Vishnu grants moksham.\\
 2.Vishnu alone can grant moksham.\\
 3.Vishnu can grant moksham alone.\\
 Of these, the third is wrong.\\
 Your quotes from Svetasvataram, taittiriyam and
Ramanuja, are clearly making the first statement.Not
the third.\\ On any strech of imagination.\\ Your
"nothing more nothing less" theory is "your own?
--------------------------------
And Sri Raghunandan who has said
?1. Are you concluding here that for anya phalam, we
have to go through anya devata? Do you think that the
purushothama can give us the best of the purusharthas
(i,e moksha) but will not be able to give us the alpa
phalans that we ask for directly and has to give us
the same through anya devatas? Request you to kindly
provide pramanas for the same from our poorvacharya
sri sookthis! 2. For all SriVaishnavites, is it not
advised that we follow the path followed by our
poorvacharyas? Has any one of our poorvacharyas in
thier shree sookthis shown inclination to the
explanation given by you here? 3. Our poorvacharyas
for whether want of any sort of phalam whether it was
an alpa phalam or the moksha itself did not advocate
going to anya devatha. If there are references against
this request you to quote the same. ?

-----------------------------------------------
My consolidated reply is given here.
I have said in the post,
?In summary, if Brahman is meditated upon, one attains
Brahman along with the auspicious qualities of Brahman
and nothing less and nothing more, as  'there is
nothing higher than or different from Him' (sve III.9)

To apply this to the issues in question, (remembering
the assumptions we have taken up) meditation on
Narayana for the sake of attaining Him (moksha) gives
one nothing less and nothing more than Moksham. IT IS
Moksham alone. This is repeatedly found in the
Upanishads, BS and conclusively by Ramanuja in
Vedhartha Sangraha.

I request the readers to read again the passage
written by Ramanuja on ?soshnute sarvan kaaman..?
(taitr) (BS) ( I have quoted the exact words of
Ramanuja  in this passage in the post wherein Ramanuja
does not bring in Nirguna vs saguna issue as one
reader wondered. He also clearly makes out that
?sarvaan kaamaan? do not stand for all (or whatever)
wishes but and the auspicious qualities of Brahman as
meditated upon in dhahara vidya.) and the succeeding
passage (not quoted in the post to avoid repetition)
wherein he interprets the passage from Kena (11.3) as
saying whenever the Brahman is meditated upon, the
seeker knows Brahman and attains  Brahman. ?He who
knows Brahman attains the Highest? (Mundaka).

 That Brahman is equated to Narayana is what I have
attempted in the post. Whenever and wherever Narayana
is meditated upon, the seeker inches towards
Brahman-hood. That is why it is said that  Narayana is
one who alone is capable of giving moksham and who
gives moksham alone when He is meditated upon as
SUPREME BRAHMAN  who is ?one without a second?.  That
is why he is said to give ?nothing more or nothing
less? than Moksham. He gives moksham. But in the
course of meditation on Him, if the seeker diverts his
attention to lesser wishes, the shift occurs from the
object of meditation on the Supreme which our
Purvacharyas didn?t want to happen. That  is why they
laid rules of ?awshya peshitam? to the SV which
discourages him to think about wishes other than
moksha-siddhi. When such a shift occurs, the Supreme
being however grants them through the modes (forms of
worship or such other devathas) which have  been
assigned to grant respective wishes. (It is here that
the differences between the interpretation I have
given and the views of others arise)  But in the
process the seeker?s focus gets diverted or diluted.
That is why the acharyas strictly prohibit them from
vacillating from their focus. ( the reason for not
worshipping anya devathas) If in the process, the
seeker, instead of shedding anya-aasai indulges in
denouncing anya-devatha, that amounts to undermining
the very Supreme being, whom he reveres is another
issue that I have tried to convey in my post.

That it is He who accepts the worship to other
devathas and grants respective boons is spoken in
Gita. This has been established in my post too using
various quotes. Apart from the passages quoted in my
post  one may even look into verses 186, 187 & 188 of
Vedhartha Sangraha (which are  given as a nutshell of
what Ramanuja says in BS and the numerous passages of
yajur veda and upanishads) and particularly verse 173
which explains how the verses from vedas which praise
virtues of gods worshipped in other sacrificial
actions must be interpreted. In all it is being said
that different results are sought after through
different modes and forms of worship which are granted
by Brahman (or Narayana for our understanding) But
nowhere it is said, that the brahman (narayana) must
be meditated upon to get such results. It is only
that- meditate on Brahman to attain Brahman. This is a
delicate thread which requires one to have  un-biased 
understanding.  My line of reasoning  through out the
post is to establish this.

-------------------------------------------------------

". You have asked me to come out with quotations in
support of the fact that Vishnu can grant all boons
(not only moksham). You have preferred to avoid (and
understandably so) all passages from"disciples of
Ramanuja" and also from Bhagavadgita (Why? it does not
matter). --By Sri Kannan

?Request you to kindly provide pramanas for the same
from our poorvacharya sri sookthis?--- (by Sri
Raghunandan)

The reply :-

Before I give the reply let me request the reader to
look in to verse 227 of Vedhartha sangraha and the
last passage of the same written by Ramanuja, which
runs thus,
?This work, vedhartha  sangraha, has been composed in
the hope that there are persons who are gifted with
discriminative insight into what is essential and
non-essential, who are endowed with breadth of vision
and open-ness of mind and who are solely guided by the
pramanas.?
Let me  in all humility say that my  post was
conceived with the genuine ?ava? to seek the truth
based on pramanas and to understand the nature of
meditation on Brahman in the light of  wishes of
sorts. The pramanas I have relied upon are vedas and
upanishads and Ramanuja?s works.
 
Another reason as I wrote to Sri Kannan in my previous
mail to him is repeated here: 
A person wanting to declare Muruga as the supreme Lord
will look into Skanda purana, draw inputs from that to
establish that Muruga is the supreme Lord. Similarly
for the other Lords, the reference will have to come
from the respective Puranas. I will be doing the same
error of methodology (error because if one wants to
substantiate a particular god, one has to make
parallel references from other sources and not from
the one that invariably talks high of that Lord)if I
depend on Vishnu purana, Srimad Bhagabvatha, AruLi
cheyal or granthas given by our achrayas. That is why
I relied only on vedas and upanishads and Ramanuja
ofcourse because without his grace and knowledge we
can not think of interpreting ancient passages and
also because his are something like pramana. 

Another reason I decided to stop with Ramanuja?s
writings is that I found that what he says with
reference to sharanagathi (in verse 251 of vedahrtha
sangraha  where  he explains the saying, ?The atman is
attained by one, whom he chooses?) that is once again
reflected in the verses 230  (avanai evan pattrum
pattru ahankaara garbam) and 231 (avanudaiya
sweekaarame rakshkam) of Mumukshuppadi, do not tally
with the views of later day acharyas. This is not my
view alone but of the pandithas and acharyas of one of
the sects who owe allegiance to Ramanuja (I hope the
readers understand what I convey). When such
difference of opinion exits in a crucial concept such
as sharanagathi, it is imperative that we avoid all
the literature  that appeared after Ramanuja for
purposes of unbiased understanding of this issue of
anya devatha and to avoid any accusation of
partiality.

It is my opinion that any discussion on the above
statement can happen only among those who are prepared
to follow  Ramanuja?s concluding statement on
vedahratha sangraha (VS) on open ness of mind and in
the light of historical perspective at the time of
establishment of achraya parampara by Ramanuja in the
back drop of perceived necessity to re-establish
vaishnavism. To quote a simple example to convey what
I mean, it is enough to say that Ramanuja?s all
embracing approach cutting across caste lines was a
historical necessity and if he were with us today, or
born 2000 years ago, his methodology (of hows and
whats), though not the core teaching would have  been
different. 


Now to the real issues?
It is very clear from the pramanas that people of
those days worshiped/ conducted yajnas  or homas to
particular devathas to reap specific benefits. All the
works including Gita have sought to establish that
though different deities were worshipped for different
 phalam, it is Narayana alone who grants the phalam.
This kind of statement alone is found in texts prior
to Ramanuja The reason is obviously to establish to
supremacy of Narayana in a poly theist society and to
avert confusion regarding the respective positions
that the devathas enjoyed vis-a vis Sriman Narayana. 

But everywhere it is being held that meditation  or
yajna (someone questioned this. But I request readers
to refer to verse 191 of VS and other verses too to
know that yajna and meditation were indeed the mode of
worship in those days) is to be done to different
devatas for different purposes. The Brahman in his
capacity as in-dweller of these devatas grant these
wishes. Verse 190 of VS says, ?? the sacrifices get
connected to the deities in him (Paramatman). In other
words, the deities  like Indra etc, are brought into
relationship  with sacrifices, by the fact that they
are the bodies of the Supreme Self who dwells in them 
as the inner ruler.?

 My post goes to say that Narayana as Brahman resides
in all deities which are prescribed as means to grant
specific wishes. It is He who grants them all through
those means. He Himself becomes the means for
moksha-siddhi whereas He grants other wishes through
the respective means which are assigned for such
purposes.

To quote pramanas, whenever propitiation had to be
done to ward off dosham of killing, Shiva was
worshipped. Rama worshipped Shiva to get relieved of
dosha of killing Ravana. Parasurama though he did the
penance in the presence of Narayana to propitiate for
the killing of kshatriyas,  was relieved of the dosham
not by Narayana but by Shiva who appeared as 
Nanjundeshwara in swayambhu form  in Nanjangud (near
Mysore). After this only did he offer the lands he
got, to sage Kashyapa. SVB (Srivachan Bhooshanam)
accepts this kind of meditation on others for specific
purposes when it says that ?yoghyathai? is the
adhikari for doing prapatti and quotes the incident of
Rama doing shranagathi to Samudra rajan. It must be
once again understood that Brahman as the supreme
accepts and grants the phalam in these incidents. 

Coming back to Nanjangud, this sthala offers reply for
Sri Raghunandan?s quote about a devotee who was
believed to have stated that she would worship Rudra
if Ramanuja too had worshipped. ( Interestingly,
Ramanuja tells umpteen times in his commentary on
Vedanta sutras that wherever the term Rudra appears
(as in Sve upa) and is meditated upon as brahman, it
means Brahman ? you can find this in my post).
Ramanuja had visited this temple from Melkote and has
given guidelines for worship of Narayana  which
happens to be the first moorthy in this temple. There
is evidence to this. The interesting point is that
Nanjundeshwara exists just adjacent to Narayana. Did
Ramanuja circumbulate both the deities, taking the
linga as Brahman and also as one who relieved
Parashurama of his dosham? One would like to know. But
by what he has said in VS one can guess what he would
have done!!

This brings us to the relevance of pariharas dedicated
to different devathas found in Jyothisha, which is one
among the 5 vedhangas. As one with more than 2 decades
of experience in palm-reading and astrology, I have
understood the importance of propitiation to different
moorthys. In this connection I have studied a number
of palm leaf inscriptions of naadi astrology
(Kaushika?s ) too and am constrained to say  that
Vishnu sthals are not to be seen generally as a rule,
for propitiation or for conduction of pujas for
specific doshams or for realisation of specific phalam
which are materialistic in nature. Even in the case of
pariharas prescribed in ancient texts which are 
derived from vedas, it is always being held that the
person must make a sankalpa to his family deity (kula
deivam) in form of getting permission to do the
pariharas for other devathas, then proceed to do the
pariharas, in the course of which he is not to visit
any temple other than the ones where he has to do the
pariharas and upon completion visit the temple
dedicated to his kula deivam and conduct puja there as
thanks giving before proceeding for home. This is  to
be followed with anna dhanam or some dhanam as is
prescribed according to his horoscope. The purport of
this is that the kula deivam, as one responsible for
the person?s well being presides over the entire
process though He is not directly bringing out the
required result.

The question of anya devatha aradhna rises here (in a
context like this)  for the SV, I think. When he
renounces ?bhoomi, uravu and selvam? (SVB vyakhyanam)
there is no question of going to a temple of anya
devatha. But when he thinks of wishes other than
moksham, he is counseled  that Narayana would fulfil
all his wishes. I am sure that the readers would agree
with me that this concept is of recent development.
But no purvacharya had said this. Instead they have
said ?shed all materialistic thoughts?. Chakravarthi
thirumagan is ready to accept us with all paapam and
Gitacharyan expects us to leave out even our punyam
(Mumukshuppadi), but at no time did they expect us to
go to him with requests other than moksham (Gita).

But we as ordinary mortals are a long way to go accept
this proposition. I came across one SV who had strong
opinion about anya devatha. But  as he was advised to
do parihara  in other temples for the delay in
marriage of his two daughters, he obliged with great
reluctance. He told, ?Enna pandrathu, I had to go to
this or that temple?? the ?enna pandrathu alone is
sufficient for not getting the phalam for the
pariharas. It is faith and thought force that are
important in any worship. It was Narayanan who
according to texts, was the giver of the phalam to
him. The ?enna pandrathu? in one stroke distanced him
from the phalam and Sriman Narayana Himself who must
have been having a laugh (tinged with varuththam?) at
the ignorance of this person.

Before closing this mail, let me quote an incident
from my own life.
I was 19 then when I contacted chicken pox. A well
wisher of our family on his own volition brought
?mandiriththa jalam? from a near-by Mariamman koil, to
be given to me. None of us expected this. But my
father took it with all reverence and poured into my
mouth with his usual chant, ? Aushadham
jhaannaveedhyoyam Vaidhyo Narayano Hari:?. As this
well wisher said that he had made a plea in the amman
sannidhi that we do ?pongal iduthal? and abhishekam,
we entered a  temple for an anya devatha for the first
time in our life but found ourselves chanting,
?Devyuvaacha. Deva deva  maha deva trikalagya??
(Lakshmi Ashtothram)?? and thus it goes:-)

Regards,
Jayasree saranathan.

Quote of the mail :-
...........
.........shoozhum 
thirandaruvi paayum thirumalai mEl enthaikku,
iranduruvum ondrAi eshaindhu"
(PEyAzhvAr)




        
                
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