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Oppiliappan List Archive: Message 00141 Jun 2003

 
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--- In Oppiliappan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, TCA Venkatesan <mkavidasan@xxxx> 
wrote:
> Finally I thought the comparison of mountain
> coming to Muhammad, while popular no doubt, to
> compare the divyadesa emperumans coming to 
> Nammazhvar to get his mangalashasanams, was not
> a good one.
> 
> adiyEn madhurakavi dAsan

*************

Dear Sri Venkatesan svAmi,

I really enjoyed those trenchant comments of yours!

Please allow me to strike only one small note of dissent however.

The English language has some wonderful idioms and figures-of-speech 
that are really quite effective in conveying a sense of drama while 
driving home a point. We can choose to be over finicky and avoid 
using them -- out of fear that it may offend the sensitivities of 
the 'sampradAyam'. But then we will only be robbing all contemporary 
discourse of its vividness and verve.

I once knew a person who was an ardent follower of Sri Ramakrishna 
Paramahamsa's teachings. This person's chief complaint against the 
Ramakrishna Mutt was that they went and published a book of the 
saint's teachings with the title "The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna". Now 
the word "gospel" is Christian in its origins and hence this person 
grouse was -- "Why use a Christian term to characterize the teachings 
of Sri Ramakrishna?"! When I heard this from him I was about to tell 
the friend, "Sir, how absurd is your objection! If only Sri 
Ramakrishna were to hear you saying this, my friend, he would turn 
indeed in his grave!". But at the last moment I pulled myself back 
and avoided speaking my mind. I was afraid because, the English 
idiom "turn in one's grave", which too is a rather Christian term, 
would have been highly offensive to the friend! He would have surely 
come after me hammer and tongs for having suggested that Sri 
Ramakrishna was in a grave!

I narrate this little incident only to explain that we should not 
really get offended by the peculiar but charming phrase-twisters and 
phrase-turners of the English language. In fact, I would even be bold 
enough to say we would do well to welcome and embrace the enrichment 
of contemporary literature of our 'sampradAya' by freely using the 
beauty and versatality of the English language. When I see so much 
being written about our sampradAya on lists like T'vengadam, 
SriRangasri and Oppiliappan, I read it all in a new admixture of 
English-Tamil-Sanskrit. It actually makes me suspect that a new 
language of SriVaisnavism called "anglo-mani-pravALam" is gradually 
emerging today -- exactly as once many centuries ago "mani-pravaLam" 
emerged out of Sanskrit/Tamil.

Let's not therefore allow language chauvinism to stifle modern 
expression in SriVaishnavism. Let the English language add glory to 
our sampradAya the way that Tamil enhanced Sanskrit. If "Mohammed" 
(PBUH) or the "Gospel" can really help to move the mountain of 
srivaishnavite faith into our hearts... why stop them?

Regards,
dAsan,
Sudarshan 





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