You are here: SriPedia - Ramanuja - Archives - May 2002

Ramanuja List Archive: Message 00008 May 2002

 
May 2002 Indexes ( Date | Thread | Author )
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]


Sri Parthasarathi thunai
Srimathe Ramanujaya Namaha

Pranams,

The various schools of philosophy are broadly
classified into Astika(believes in the existence of
god) and Nastika(doesnot believe in the existence of
god) schools. The charvaka, Jainism and Buddism are
some schools which advocate Nastikam whereas Sankhya,
yoga, Nyaya, Vaishesika, Mimamsa and Vedantic schools
advocate Astikam. Among the Vedantic schools which
accept the Vedas as the mukya pramana there are three
major categories, Advaita school propogated by Sri
Adi Shankara, Vishistadvaita propagated by our
Aacharya Sri Ramanuja and the Dvaita school propagated
by Madvacharya.

Sri Manavala Mamunigal in his Arthi Prabhandam says
how Sri Ramanuja refuted all the other schools and
established our Vishistadvaita madham. He says as
follows:

?Chaaruvaaga madam neerusaidu Samana chedikkanal
koluthiye
Sakkiya kadalai vattruviththu migu Sankiya kiri
murindida
Maarusaididukanaadhavaadiyargal
vaaitagartharamiguthumel
Vandha Paasupadhar chindiyodum vagai vaadhuseidha
Ethirasanar
Koorumaa guru madathodoongiya
kumaralinmadamavattrinmel
Kodiya tarkkacharam vittapin
kurugimaayavaadhiyaraivendrida
Meerivaadilvarum Bhaskaranmada vilakkadik kodi
yerindupoi
Mikka yaadhava madaththaimaaytha peruveerar naalummiga
vaazhiye?(29)

Here Sri Mamunigal shows how Sri Ethirajar had debate
with the various schools like chaaruvaaga,
samana(jains), Sakkiya , sankiya, 
Paasupadhar(Saivaites), Maayavaadham(advaitam), 
Bhaskara mata and the Yaadhava mata and how he came
out victorious. Our mangalasaasanams to that great
aacharya who came out victorious in his debate with
the above schools of philosophy.

Jainism and Buddhism took birth only in India though
they have been almost washed out of India now. At one
stage only these religions were prevelant among the
masses and people have almost forgotten about the
Vedas and the vedic arthas. The Buddhist monks
started propagating soonya vaadha among the people. 
They said that the world was formed from poojya and
will ultimately end in poojya too. At this time
people considered everything, the jivas and the
Bhagavan to be unreal. Then came Sri Adi shankara
who had the great responsibility to restore Vedic
knowledge in the society. He as a single person had
to change the minds of the people and make them
believe that god was real and ultimate as shown by the
Vedas. At that time it was really difficult for him
to totally change the minds of the people from atheism
to theism. So he had to accept their views and also
slowly bring them to his views. So he said that he
accepted that the world was unreal but strongly
enforced that the parabrahma was real and the Vedas
have to be followed. So people slowly changed from
atheism to vedantic advaita matam. We see in many
lectures today the lecturers talking according to the
crowd. Though the person may be well versed in many
subjects he cannot talk everything at a time or talk
something which is not applicable or understandable by
the present crowd. Similarly Shankaracharya?s main
role was to convert the atheist people into theist. 
He proved the existence of the parabrahmam and people
started believing the Vedas. When this has been done
then came our great Aacharya Sri Ramanuja who removed
the errors of the shankara school of philosophy and
also established the tattvatraya concepts. He proved
that chit, achit and Ishvaran all were real . Our
human civilization from the early ages have seen a
number of evolutions. Similarly in philosophy also
there has been number of evolutions. Shankara paved
path for the first evolution and then came Sri
Ramanuja to give the actual Vishistadvaita philosophy.
If initially Sri shankara talked about both brahma
and the jivas to be real no one would have accepted
it since those people didn?t even believe the Vedas. 
So he brought a change of mind in the people then it
became easy for Sri Ramanuja to establish his
siddhantam. It is not so easy to change the long
beliefs of people. It can occur only stage by stage. 
So in my opinion Sri Shankacharya was not wrong but
I will never support the advaitins today after Sri
Ramanuja has refuted the misinterpretations in the
Shankara bhasyam and has given the correct siddantham.

Both Shankara and Ramanuja accepted sriman Narayana
has the Parabrahman and had no doubt in it. 
Shankaracharya was also a great scholar whose bhasyams
were taken as reference by Sri Ramanuja too. Acharya
Ramanuja only made the necessary changes whereever
essential to the Shankara Bhasyam and hence
SriBhashyam is flawless. So we should have the due
respect to Shankaracharya too though we are sure to
get attached only to our great acharya, Sri Ramanuja. 
So from the next postings we will continue seeing
about our guru paramparai and about the works of our
acharyas.

Adiyen Ramanuja Dasyai
Sumithra Varadarajan



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness
http://health.yahoo.com




[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