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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