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
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