Dear Kasturi Rangan,
Kindly forgive me for pursuing this thread and please feel free to
correct me if I am wrong. I've heard that Purusha Suktham is in all
the 3 (rik, yajur and sama) vedas. It talks about the manifestation
of the Leela Vibhuthi - Material World(starting from 'braahmanosya
mukham aaseeth') from a being called Virata Purushan('tasmaat viraat
ajaayatha'). It is stated that the devas performed an yagya called
sarva aahuthi('tasmaat yagyaath sarvahutha:') upon which the Virata
Purusha was satisfied and he came before them and initiated the leela
vibhuti manifestation. It is also stated that the whole universe
(Leela Vibhuti) thus came into existence from his 'Naval'('Naabhya
aaseeth anthariksham').
Now, a) who is this Virata Purushan? b) Why weren't the other deities
not able to manifest the leela vibhuthi the way this Virata Purushan
was able to?
Answer to a) is, this Virata Purushan is the form that we worship,
that we call as Narayana - (in artha panchakam, this Virata Purushan
is the Vyuha Vasudevan?!), reasons being: 1) Both these forms have
been known for the lotus coming out of the naval, and this lotus
leading to the creation of this universe that we see and live. 2) The
same purusha sukta continues to say that this Virata Purusha is the
one who has Hree and Lakshmi as his wives - (hreeshca) Hree and
(lakshmishca) Laskhmi are (patnyau) wives (te) to you - (reference
http://www.ramanuja.org/purusha/sukta-6.html#6). Per innumerous
references from the same vedas, we infer that Narayana aka Vishnu is
the one who has Hree and Lakshmi as his wives.
Answer to b) - I don't know. Some learned one could elaborate on the
same. Well, I could only infer that this is the best form of the
brahmam(and hence is an equivalent and prime form of the brahmam as
revealed to the vedic seers) that "is" capable of the "jagat
vyaparam" and as per the brahma sutras, jagat vyaparam is unique to
the paramatma. Hence, it is clear without any doubt that this form,
Narayana, could be claimed and worshipped as the supreme one, per
vedas.
There are other statements like 'devAnAm parama:' etc. Why even go to
that, 'tat tvam asi svetha ketho' could be interpreted to mean that
svethakethu is the brahmam;). There are innumerous ways to interpret
these statements. Our acharyas had mastered all the vedas and hence
they could define the context, usage and hence the appropriate
interpretation for the same, unlike us, who try to interpret the
same, line by line and hence quote one or two lines from the vedas to
support our view.
I haven't heard about any other form being claimed by the Vedas as
the one that performs jagat vyaparam. Learned scholars, kindly feel
free to correct me.
My apologies for my ignorance and mistakes. Absolutely, no offense
intended upon anyone.
Yatheendra Pravanam Vandhe RAMYA Jaamaataram Munim
Adiyen,
Ramanuja Dasan
> (b) Legitimacy of other vedic 'deities' claim to be brahman:
> If we accept the 'entire shruthi' as pramANa, rudra is mentioned
> as 'devAnAm parama:' supreme God in Taittriya Aranyaka and also
> termed as pashupathi. Brihaspathi is called brahman!!!!! in
numerous
> places in the very first khanda of taittriya samhita. This is no
> different from another line in nArAyaNopanishad which
says 'nArAyaNa
> param brahma'. Do you think we have to turn a blind eye to all
these
> with the escape sequence 'all vedanta acharyas didn't doubt
> NarayaNa's paratvam?'.
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