--- 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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