You are here: SriPedia - Ramanuja - Archives - Mar 2003

Ramanuja List Archive: Message 00083 Mar 2003

 
Mar 2003 Indexes ( Date | Thread | Author )
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]


Sri:
Srimathe Ramanujaya nama:
Dear saha bhAgavathAs,
Salutations to all. I'm forwarding Sriman Lakshmi 
Narasimhan's reply(he sent me a personal mail)and my response to it.

Dear Lakshmi Narasimhan,

I perfectly agree with what you say and I clearly 
understand that your intention was very good that we should correct 
our mistakes. My only contention is that one can learn by playing Sri 
MAV casettes(that's what I have)or if one can catch hold of a good 
bhAgavatha who is adept in reciting prabandham(I don't know how many 
are there in US and esp. near soundararajan's place and in my place 
there is no SV who chants NDP as in sEvAkAlam) and try to rectify 
one's mistakes and also try to learn the meanings of the pasurams 
from scholars who are expert in bhagavad viShayam. So we should 
encourage a person(even if commits mistakes) by helping him out to 
overcome the mistakes(by providing some methodologies like you,Sri TA 
Varadhan,Sri Vijay Triplicane, gave for kURudhumE,kURuminE...) 
instead of saying that he should wait for the right acaraya/pundit 
and until then nama japam should suffice. 

I learnt SriRanga gadhyam thro' MS casette and I can 
only chant that way but wrt sharaNAgati gadhyam I follow Sri MAV and 
I haven't yet memorised it completely but lot of words are similar to 
SriRanga gadhyam and hence I am picking it up faster. Though I know 
the overall meaning still I don't know the beauty of each and every 
word(I'm sure that gadhyam is endowed with such beauty). When I was 
reciting SriRanga gadhyam(without seeing the book)I didn't even know 
the overall meaning but the mere chanting used to elevate me(esp the 
name SriRanganATha about whom I'm crazy) but now I am much better and 
I surely love to learn(desire) the meaning of all these things from 
the learned scholars before I depart(HE has to show the green 
signal). 

But I would have been disappointed had someone told me 
that I should have known the meanings and chanted correctly without 
mistakes(fortunately in my case I have a flair for samskrt) if not I 
should have waited till I picked up the those skills. Only the Lord 
knows how many times I wonder "how emperumAnAr composed such a 
beautiful,impatient(to reach Him),flooding emotional poem in the form 
of prose(at jet speed) and how can anyone(some foreigners like Mr 
Lester and even some indian scholars like Dr. Agnihotri,follower of 
Sri Desika sampradayam) dare to doubt the authorship of gadhyathrayam 
when LakshmaNa/Ramanuja said "aham sarvam kariShyAmi"). I do agree 
completely with you that one has to improve oneself and avoid 
mistakes instead of giving some lame excuses. Mistake is a part of 
learning. A person who is in the pursuit of true knowledge and has 
the true desire for the Lord will surely rectify his mistakes and 
will be open to suggestions and advices from others. 

Even many telugu speaking people do not understand the 
telugu krtis. Once I happened to converse(in english) with one lady
(who claims that her royal sima telugu is the purest)who was giving 
literal translation to another person about the krti "kshIra sAgara 
shayana" saying that "you protected the elephant(she doesn't know 
which elephant(gajendra/kavalayApIda) or the incident gajendra 
mOksham)and gave sarees to her("her" is also left unreferred)". I was 
shocked to hear the translation. Then I told her the meaning but she 
was not very happy about it(because non-telugu person giving meaning 
to the telugu person). Written language is different from spoken 
language and again it depends on the author(in what context he 
writes). It applies to me also. Altough I know tamizh I don't know 
the hidden philosophical meanings of the prabandham. I happened to 
listen to only one upanyAsam(last summer) by Sri Velukkudi Krishnan 
swami on the very first TVM and after hearing that I felt so ashamed 
of myself that all along I had been chanting those pAsurams without 
knowing the rich meanings behind it. Sri Velukkudi swami's upanyasam 
was so excellent that it had a different side effect on me. The 
desire kept the bhagavad viShayam on hold and instigated me to go for 
works, like SVB,Mumukshuppadi,AcArya Hrdhayam and thathva 
thrayam,about which I was ignorant. NOt that I clearly understand and 
practise them now! But surely I am more informed about our 
sampradayam now than I was six months ago. 

Initially(out of ignorance) I may even worship demi-
gods or even tend towards other "isms" but when I become the 
beneficiary of His Grace and have the inquisitive mind to know the 
truth which can answer everything,surely I will avoid doing whatever 
I was doing previously with ignorance. You can correct me if I'm 
wrong about the following(as I have already explicitly stated my 
ignorance of bhagavad viShayam):

NammAzhvAr asks PerumAL:why did not You come all these days and let 
me suffer.

PerumAL:He just smiles and doesn't offer any expalnation(rather it is 
understood that PerumAL could not enter AzhvAr's mind or His grace 
was getting blocked at the receiving end)

PS:Fundamentals(as against common notion)is "the" toughest and if one 
is very strong in the fundamentals no one can shake that person. 
People always say that "they do fundamental research" 
meaning "unfolding" the mysteries of the truth/universe. With this 
let us close this topic as we understand each other's intention:-)

AzhvAr EmperumAnAr JIyar thiruvadigaLE sharaNam
NC Nappinnai


Lakshmi Narasimhan <nrusimhan@xxxx> wrote:

Srimathe Ramanujaya Namaha

Dear Smt Nappinnai,
Hope you are doing fine with perumal's grace. 
>It is actually shaTakOpa but in thamizh we pronounce it as sadagopan 
>even while chanting. When this mistake is allowed why can't other 
>mistakes be allowed?
>From the literature perspective: This is not correct. Tamizh allows 
the mix of samskrutham. It has lots of words that have roots or just 
a copy of samskruth words. So, it cannot be treated as wrong. 
Moreover, ShaTakOpa, irrespective of the meaning, is a proper noun 
and as it goes across languages, it will have to change according to 
the limitations of that languange and this is not considered as a 
mistake. For example, "zha"(the 15th consonant in tamizh) is a letter 
that does not exist in english or any of the popular languages other 
than tamizh, and hence it cannot be pronounced as "zha" and that is 
why in english they equate it to "l" and hence Tamil.

>Even when singing it,it may convey a different message because most 
>singers...
Conveying different message to OTHERS, is not in question. What it 
conveys to the person who recites is what matters and that was the 
context. If I recite it wrong, it would convey a different meaning to 
me. So, the sooner I correct it the better. That is what I meant. And 
yes, there are lot of people, who, while singing the pasurams, do not 
group the words properly. And this is definitely wrong. For the sake 
of music, the meanings that the pasurams or any poem for that matter, 
should not be sacrificed.

> Consider the famous krti with intense emotion
> (AbhEri) "nagumOmu ganalE ninajAli thelisi" (telugu speakers,please 
> forgive my telugu) and many sing it as "nagumO mOganalEni najAli 
> thelisi".
These are language barriers that I have explained in the first 
paragraph. These barriers have been accepted by those who care more 
for the music and less for the words whilst the fact is, this is 
wrong too. But who really cares? Everyone is involved in appreciating 
the ragas and the thalas and the aalapanais while there has been a 
decline in the percentage of audience who really care for the 
language and the meanings. Even amongst those who recite, 
Sahasranamam or any vedic hymns for that matter, tell me how many 
really understand the meaning and tell the same? How many tamizh 
people understand telugu kritis? But they appreciate the singers so 
well for singing as per the rules defined for the appropriate kriti's 
raga and thala. So, this is something completely different from what 
we are discussing. Once again, Lord does enjoy even if we recite 
wrong, but, my point(as I had explained pretty clear in my earlier 
post) was that we should find all the ways possible to learn/recite 
it right. If we don't take up the purist style atleast for the 
fundamentals, we would always be in circles and not go past 
milestones that we really have to go past in our sampradayam. And if 
we say, lord enjoys with whatever we say, we would end up being 
questioned like "if god enjoys with whatever we say, why do we 
restrict ourselves to azhwars hymns, why not any others" etc... Lord 
enjoys with whatever we say - is from the perspective of Azhwar - and 
to go to that level, we need to set the basics right. Once we reach 
that level of Azhwars(may or may not, is a different issue), we could 
say, whether we call him Narayana, or Siva or Brahma etc wouldn't 
matter. Philosophies have been deviced by those who have attained 
certain heights in spiritual levels or mental states etc. We should 
try to see them as role models and we should not try to see it from 
their perspective in the very beginning itself. If we say, Azhwar 
says "Muniye, Nanmugane(brahma), Mukkannappa(Shiva)", and hence we 
can worship brahma or shiva too, I don't agree to that. 
Azhwar/Acharya's perspective has to be learnt first. And by 
continuous practise of our sampradayam(I insist that we should do 
this, with the fundamentals being right), we would reach certain 
levels of spirituality and at that point, whatever we have learnt 
would make sense to the fullest. We all know that paramatma is the 
inner controller, but how many of us can really see him in everyone? 
Knowing that lord enjoys our mistakes too IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT 
from what we have to follow. We must follow our sampradayam at our 
best. Last, but not least, I personally feel that, it is these small 
excuses that build up well and turn us away from the sampradayam. I 
feel that these small negligences have become a fort now(our parents, 
ancestors have built it) and hence we have so many Shri Vaishnavas(I 
include myself, just based on birth, but honestly, not yet, by 
qualities) who really aren't as those were visioned by our acharyas. 
That was the very reason why I immediately responded to Shri 
Soundararajan's question, but, my intent wasn't to demotivate those 
who are ignorant, at all. And because this is a group, it is a good 
idea to use the opportunity to post something that is really 
important for this generation of young Shri Vaishnava aspirants.

One final point in the recitals. The technique that has been followed 
till date in our sampradayam is to MEMORIZE first(with or without 
meanings). So, while memorizing the same, care should be taken enough 
to make sure one recites it right. Later, the person, after some 
number of years of recitation, would start understanding the meanings 
naturally and once they go for a IDU kalakshepam or any other of that 
sort, it would hardly take some hours to grasp and retain the 
meanings of the pasurams from Azhwars' perspective. This technique 
has been followed from the Vedic learning tradition i.e one is 
supposed to MEMORIZE the vedas in the gurukulam with the knowledge of 
the karma kandam alone to some level at that point so as to perform 
the rituals etc. Once, the gurukulam is over, the person goes back to 
the family, gets married and performs the nithya karmas and other 
specific karmas as per the karma kandam and then when the person 
actually starts finding that the karmas give momentary pleasure/fruits
(sitrinbam) then he starts the inquiry on the permanent pleasure/fruit
(paerinbam) by reciting what he has MEMORIZED in the gurukulam as 
part of the BRAHMA KANDAM - and then(ATHA), due to that(ATHAHA), 
becomes BRAHMA-JIGNYASA, (JIGNYASA=GNYATHUM-ICCHA JIGNYASA) i.e a 
person who has the desire to have the knowledge of BRAHMAN. For this, 
the fundamentals, at whatever cost, has to be right. One can imagine, 
how catastrophic it would be, if that person does an inquiry on the 
BRAHMAN, based on what he learnt - that was WRONG(even a small 
mistake would lead to a completely different interpretation, let 
alone the viswamithra shrusti of the person who interprets it wrong 
even after learning it right!

I apologize for my mistakes and my ignorance and if you think this 
needs to be forwarded to the group, please do so:)

Yatheendra Pravanam Vandhe RAMYA Jamataram Munim

Adiyen Ramanuja Dasan,
Lakshmi Narasimhan







[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index ] [Thread Index ] [Author Index ]
Home Page
http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia
ramanuja-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To subscribe to the list