Dear Sri Srinivasa chari, Accept my praNAms. Seems like you are not convinced about gAyatrI :-). First of all the sAvitrI mantra is not for everybody and you are right in that our sampradAyam promises something more - eligibility of women, shUdras and avarNas (no offence is meant for any category). If I am right, only the twice-born were eligible for seeking brahma- gnyana according to advaitins. I don't have the 'nityam' work by rAmAnuja with me right now but remember seeing brahma yagnyam, vaiswedevam etc. apart from sandhya as daily duties. Let us go from here. #1: pAncharAtra samhitas have a distinct vaishNava type sandyavandanam. There the gAyatrI mantra is not chanted, but vishNu gAyatrI in morning, dvAdashaksharI in afternoon and ashtAksharI in the evening. Our pUrvAchAryas did not throw away the existing 'vedic' sandhya into dustbin, right? Perhaps, throwing it away and replacing with Agamic practices might be a good idea. Subsequent generations may not be squeamish about worshipping 'various vedic deities' apart from nArAyaNa and 'can have the right bhAvam', because worship of nArAyaNa is explicit instead of as a hidden antaryAmi in vedic savita, agni, mitra, varuNa, indra etc. :) #2: What is the scope of rAmAnuja sampradAyam? Was it vedanta or elucidation of dharma sUtras? It isn't necessary to go over dharma sUtras, shruti etc. once again, as we accept them as pramANas (unlike bauddhas and jainas who reject them). Our issues are with mImAmsakas who relegate gnyAna kAndam as mere artha vAdam and hence unnecessary (though we may agree with them with respect to karma kAndam) and advaitins, who according to us give distorted meaning for upanishads :). #3: If a shUdra or avarNa is guaranteed eligibility for brahma gnyAna and moksha, what is the necessity to do any of the vedic practices? At most, by forsaking them, a dvija will be a bhrashtA, but still have eligibility for brahma gnyAnam & moksham, in our sampradAyam, right? Why then sandhya is included in the nityam? Forgive me if I seem to be beating around the bush. My understanding (may be incorrect) is that rAmAnuja need not and would not say 'gAyatrI upAsana' is be all and end all, because that would exclude women, shUdras and avarNas. However, that automatically doesn't imply that those who are eligible should go ahead and foresake it, as he includes performance of them in his nityam. He doesn't need to re-describe the efficacy of them, because it was already done so by vedas, by our rishis and sUtrakAras. We don't have any objection to the works of sUtrakAras. (We go to the extent of allowing animal sacrifice in the context of srauta yagnyas and do not accept the pishTa pashu (flour animal) replacement that madhvas use. Remember, suggestion of pishTa pashu (jain polemic nIlAkshi for e.g., vayu purANam) was there for a long time and rAmAnuja had an option of adopting it). However, nowhere it is said that you can go ahead and ignore all others except sandhyA. The subtle difference as pointed out by Shri Venkatesan is, "even if you ignore all others, do not ignore sandhyA". Regards, Kasturi Rangan --- In ramanuja@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, srinivasa chary <srinivasadasa@xxxx> wrote: > Dear Shri Kasturi Rangan, > Thank you for very informative posts on Sandhya, Gayatri and related issues from Brahmanas, Dhramasutras, etc. Needless to say the evidence is overwhelmingly in your favour. I would still have preferred for pramanas from within Sri Ramanuja sampradayam as done in postings of some of the bhagavathas. While there is no intention here to argue that Sri Ramanuja sampradayam is out side the pale of Dharma sUtra, is n't it true that the sampradayam promises something more than Gayatri to its votaries, and that something should be focussed on? Or should we follow Gayatri Upasana, so gloriously praised in Brahmanas, as the be-all-and-end-all? > Just to tempt you to disseminate more information from your Vedic research! > Regards, > Srinivasadasa >
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