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Ramanuja List Archive: Message 00022 Jun 2002

 
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srImathE rAmAnujAya namaha
srImadh varavara munayE namaha

Dear Members,

On this subject, I request you all who are in India, to contact your
respective acharyas and send a strong criticism to the TTD publications on
this, as invited by Sri Mukundan.

Let that be a parallel action, but I will try to prove that the person who
has written this (I have not seen the site and I don't know who has written
this. Whoever it is....) has no knowledge of our sampradhAyam and the
history associated with it and just he has written for name and fame only.

=====Quote 1======================
1. "It is worth pointing out here that neither Sri Alavandar,
tirumali nambi,Sri Ramanuja nor his cousin and disciple Embar
contributed a taniyan for the thiruvaymoli nor was a commentary
written by any one of the above. These acharyas were not perhaps
great tamil scholars for one thing. IT IS EVEN DOUBTFUL IF SRI
RAMANUJA STUDIED CLOSELY ALL THE VERSES OF THE THIRUVAYMOLI. The
thiruvoymoli alone came to be well known as the standard form of
devotional literature,..........The works of other alvars were
obviously not known, or less known and could not have been classed as
philosophical, but only devotional...............Nammazhvar's
tiruvoymoli makes no reference to and does not attempt to refute the
Advaita philosophy".
======End Quote 1==================
In order to refute this statement clearly, one has to understand the social
set up in Tamil Nadu at the time when these AchAryAs are said to have lived
and graced us. You have to consider Sri Adhi Sankarar also for
understanding this. It was the time when the whole vedic religion was in
descendence and the anti-vedic religion like Buddhism and Jainism was in
the ascendence. It was the time when Sri Adhi Sankarar was born and revived
the vedic religion, through his philosophy based on the prasthAna thrayam.
Remember, it was a very very difficult job for Sri Adhi Sankarar to do
this. Yes, all the kings were supporting either Buddhism or Jainism and
there were no takers for the Vedic religion. So Sri Adhi Sankarar had to
fight a lot to bring into the fore the vedic religion. He did succeed in it
by god's grace, but some of his interpretations were not consistent with
the brahma sUtrAs. Nevertheless, it was accepted by the vedic religion
followers and was in vogue unfortunately. This philosophy of Sri Adhi
Sankarar is the Advaitha philosophy. I do not want to elaborate on it as
all of you would know what is the basis of this philosophy. However, in
short, Advaitha preaches that the jeevAthmA and the paramAthmA are the one
and the same and that the difference that we see are due to the "mAyA" or
illusion and when the jeevAthmA realises the truth (?) that he is the same
as the brahman, that is the sate of mOksha. Another important point in
Advaitha is that the brahman has no attributes (nirguNa) or forms.

This was contradicting many statements in the vEdAs where it is clearly
stated that the jeevAthmAs are not the same as paramAthmAs and that the
paramAthmA or the brahman has very clearly identifiable guNAs and forms.
But THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT TO REMEMBER is that Sri Adhi Sankarar DID NOT
USE ANY OTHER SOURCE THAN THE VEDAS TO SUPPORT HIS ADVAITHA PHILOSOPHY.

With this in mind, let us see the AchAryAs whom this author has referred.
Sriman Nathamunigal was the intrumental AchAryA in bringing out the
nAlAyira divya prabhandham which were lost for quite some time. He
struggled hard to get the acceptance of the brahmin community for this
Tamil works as in those days the brahmins were not treating Tamil on par
with Sanskrit. He succeeded only very little. Then came Sri Alavandhar
after Sri Uyyakkondar and Sri Manakkal Nambi. In fact, from history it is
clear that even Sri Alavandhar succeded only minimally in propagating the
AzhwArs' works. This is evident from the history that propagating the
nAlAyira divya prabhandham was one of his ardent desires, which he could
not complete in his life time and hence asked Sri Ramanuja to do the same.
It is also known to everybody that Sri Alavandhar asked Sri Ramanuja to
write a bhAshyam for the Brahma sUtrAs based on the AzhwArs' works. In
fact, Sri Alavandhar wanted Sri Ramanuja to refute Advaitha very clearly.

Now, when an argument is going on, the reference works and the supporting
works used for the arguments should be the same between the arguing people.
It is clearly recorded that when Sri Ramanuja was writing Sri BhAshyam, he
took the divya prabhandams as his support whenever he had a doubt. But he
cannot explicitly tell this out because the divya prabhandams were in
consideration only within the Sri Vaishnavite community and not the entire
brahmin community. Also, except for the ChOzhiya Sri Vaishnavites, who
practised Sri Vaishnavism right from the beginning (eternity), all other
brahmins, including Sri Ramanuja's forefathers, where of the vadamAL
origin. And as indicated above the AzhwAr's works did not get the full
acceptance of the Brahmin community. So, as per the rules Sri Ramanuja had
to use only the vEdAs and upanishads to support his claim for upholding the
visishTAdhvaitha philosophy as the true purport of the vEdAs.

It is also to be noted clearly that all the works of Sri Ramanuja was
directed against the advaithIs and hence he had to quote only from the
common works like vEdAs, AgamAs and upanishads and not from the Divya
prabhandams. THIS IS THE ACTUAL REASON FOR Sri Ramanuja NOT REFERRING TO
THE DIVYA PRABHANDHAMS IN ANY OF HIS WORKS. Once again please read through
the Guruparamparai, where clearly it is indicated how Sri Ramanuja gave the
correct interpretation of the ChAndhOgya upanishad vAkhyam "tasya yathA
kapyAsm puNdareekam yEvam akshiNI". This is a very interesting one and I
will post this separately. Sri Ramanuja took the AzhwAr's words as his
support while writing the correct interpretation with utmost conviction.

Regarding the Author saying that the other AzhwArs works are only
devotional and not philosophical, it only throws the author in a poor light
that he has not read the AzhwAr's works completely. In fact the
MudhalAzhwAr's works are only philosophy talking about the paratvam of
Sriman Narayanan. Of course, we have the nAnmugan thiruvandhAdhi and the
thiruchhandha viruttham of Sri Thirumazhisai AzhwAr which again talks about
the philosophy of visishTAdvaitha. Remember that the Thirucchandha
viruttham starts with "pooNilAya aindhumAi...". If this is not philosophy,
what else is the philosophy.

Regarding Sri Nammazhwar not refuting the advaithA, again it shows that the
author has no knowledge of interpreting and accepting things in the actual
sense. There are actually two ways to refute a point. One is to point out
the errors and then present the correct view and the other is to just tell
the truth without pointing out the flaws of the other person. In fact what
Sri Nammazhwar has done is the same as the second above. Also, it is to be
remembered that Advaitha got its acceptance only after Sri Adhi Sankarar
and during the time of Sri Nammazhwar it had very little or no acceptance
at all. Hence there was no need for Sri Nammazhwar to refute it at all. But
the foremost reason for Sri Nammazhwar not refuting it (even considering
the little consideration it 'might' have had) is that Sri Nammazhwar was
singing the prabhandhams for him to attain the lotus feet of Sriman
Narayanan and not for entering into any argument like Sri Ramanuja. So
where is the question of Sri Nammazhwar attempting to refute it.

All these only proves that the author, who has written this, has absolutely
no knowledge of Sri Vaishnavism and its history and society at the time of
happening of these incidents. (I do not know, the author might be a
SriVaishnavite himself. If it is so, then it is only unfortunate)

======Quote 2==================
2. "The natural inference is that a section of the srivaishnavas felt
that thirukurukai-piran pillan's commentary though it had the
approval of Sri Ramanuja and was considered the standard one, did not
dp full justice to Nammazhvar's Tiruvaymoli, or that it was not
illuminative".(The author here shows his view that pillan's
commentary was accepted by the vadagalais and the tengalai acharyas
from nanjiyar and others did not accept that and hence made other
commentaries)
===End Quote 2=================

This rather gives a feeling that the author is a Vadakalai srivaishnavite.
Every one knows why there are so many commentaries for ThiruvAimozhi. Again
the society is the reason for all these. The ARAyirappadi of Sri
Thirukkurugaip pirAn piLLAn is the first and foremost and it was certainly
written with the blessings of Sri Ramanuja. The author says here that "Sri
TKPP does not refer to this anywhere. So it cannot be construed that Sri
Ramanuja inspired this". If that is so, then why the vadagalais accept this
6000p padi as the authentic version and say that it is authentic because
Sri Ramanuja gave his approval for this. The author, as correctly pointed
out by Smt Sumitra Varadarajan, has contradicted his very own statement.
How poor?!

=====Quote 3=========
3. "Ramanuja has not quoted a single tamil verse from thiruvaimozhi
as authority..............So it could not with justification or in
fairness be said that his philosophy was to any extent inspired by
the teachings of the thiruvaimozhi".
====End Quote 3======

The rebuttal given for the "Quote 1" is very much valid for this too.

=====Quote 4==========
1. "The tanians prefixed to the other three works of Sri Nammazhvar
and to the other works of the prabhandam show that these works were
discovered by later acharyas."
====End Quote 4=====
This again only proves that the author does not know anything about the Sri
Vaishnava sampradhAyam. It is a well known fact that Sriman Nathamunigal
brought the Nalayira Divya prabhandhams to the fore after it was lost for a
while and then passed it on to Sri Alavandhar through Sri Uyyakkondar and
Sri Manakkal Nambi and in turn Sri Alavandhar passed it on to Sri Ramanuja
through Sri Thiruvaranga Perumal Arayar. Then how is the author saying that
the AchAryas who wrote the thaniyans had discovered the same.

There is another way this can be refuted. When I will write about Sri
Ramanuja's interpretation of the ChAndhogya upanishad vAkhyam, I will prove
that Sri Ramanuja has considered, not only thiruvAimozhi but many other
pAsurams for which the thaniyans were given by AchAryas who lived after Sri
Ramanuja. It it were these AchAryAs, who gave the thaniyans, who really
discovered these prabhandhams, then how is it possible that Sri Ramanuja
considered this? Foolish again on the part of the author.

===Quote 5============
2. "One Tiruvaimozhi pillai alias tirumalai alvan born in 1325 A.d
wrote a commentary on periya alvar's Tirumoli. He is the son of
Pillai Lokacharya."
===End quote 5==========

I feel frustrated to say again and again that the author has no knowledge
about our sampradhAyam or its history or the Guruparamparai. It is a well
know fact that Sri Pillai Lokachariar was a bachelor, a naishTika
brahmachAri. Then how is it possible that he had a son. In fact Sri
Thiruvaimozhi pillai was born in the place of Kunthee nagaram. I do not
have the name of his illustrious parents. I will post it in my next mail.
But I am sure every one knows the fact that Sri Pillai Lokachariar was a
bachelor and more importantly Sri Thiruvaimozhip Pillai was NOT the son of
Sri Pillai Lokachariar. I hope you now know how much weightage should be
given to this blabbering of the author.

====Quote 6==========
3. "Whether the thiruvaimozhi was seriously studied before the
appearance of the commentary by pillan and whether the other twenty
three works which make up the prabhandam were known to and were
studied by Sri Ramanuja are matters open to doubt"
4. " pillan does not say anywhere therein that he executed the work
in obedience to Sri Ramanuja's command and that it had the seal of
his approval".
=====End Quote 6======

In my humble opinion, the matter open to doubt is not what the author has
said above, but the very knowledge of the author who wrote all these
abatthams. I think I have fairly been able to succeed in proving that the
author has no knowledge about our sampradhAyam.

But what is more hurting is that such foolish articles are appearing in a
magazine run by a Sri Vaishnavite temple. This should be strongly
criticized and condemned by one and all. Will a Saivaite temple magazine
have an article denouncing the nAyanmArs. The entire world is taking the
Sri Vaishnavites alone for a ride considering us as fools. I request every
one of you to take this up seriously with the TTD through any source.

AzhwAr emberumAnAr jeeyar thiruvadigaLE saraNam
adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan
Thirumalai Vinjamoor Venkatesh













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