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 shri: 

Shrimathi Jayashree saara..

Wonderful article. nice thinking in words. thanks for your 
moving mail.

  appaaDiYo !!!  Great Thinking 


Adiyane

 T.K.Nambi  daasan


 

--- In ramanuja@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, jasn sn <jayasartn@xxxx> wrote:
> 
> SRIMATHE RAMANUJAYA NAMAHA.
> 
> The first 27 sutras of the 3rd chapter of Brahma
> sutras which talk about the ascent and descent of the
> soul, shed some  light on cloning too. In his bhashya
> to the 1st sutra, (3-1-1), Ramanuja speaks about
> PanchAgni Vidhya which explains 5 oblations, in the
> forms of shraddha, soma, rain, food and seed. They 
> are offered in 5 fires (i.e., objects imagined to be
> fires for the sake of upasana) ?namely heavens,
> parjanya, earth, man and woman. The 5th oblation comes
> to be designated as man. 
> 
> Explanation for this is found in subsequent verses
> whereby it is said that the soul which descends to be
> born comes through water (rain), earth, plant food ,
> man and finally woman. In the first 4 stages the
> descent is quick and the soul is only connected to the
> `oblations' / fire and does not undergo or experience
> any karma. The process is irreversible and once the
> soul has entered the chain, it is headed to be entered
> into the womb. There is no question of not getting
> discarded mid way.
> 
> Verse 26 clearly states that till the soul remains
> with in the man's body, it just stays only `connected'
> to him and is not actually born. Only when it enters
> the womb of the woman, the soul is born. There is no
> mincing of words about this according to Brahma
> sutras.
> 
> In the case of cloning arising from human endeavour,
> thanks to advancement in science, the 5th oblation
> (mating) is missing. Verses 18 & 19 of the Brahma
> sutra do speak about this probability. Verse 19 tells
> about the cases of Drona, Drupadi and Dhrishtadhyumna
> as without 5th oblation. They have been recorded in
> Smritis.
> 
> There is another type also who are not born through
> the 5th oblation.
> Of the three types of souls, the lowest ones, namely,
> the evil-doers (the former two are the ones who go to
> the abode of gods and the abode of fathers) `do not
> ascend or descend from the world of moon'. (That is
> why the heavens never get filled up) ` It follows
> therefore that the 3rd place or evil-doers do not
> depend on the 5th oblation for the origination of a
> body. They are born irrespective of this oblation."
> (verse 18)
> 
> Verse 20 tells about other 3 types which are born
> without 5th oblation. They are the ones born of eggs,
> from living beings and those that germinate.
> 
> But one qualitative difference between these types and
> the cloning of today is that they have been part of
> the scheme of Creation of the Lord. No where in
> scriptures, are there references to empowering men (by
> artificial tools) to skip the 5th oblation. Even in
> the birth of Kauravas, the division of the embryo into
> 100 containers happen after the 5th oblation is
> completed. (Growth of embryo outside the womb is
> something mankind might someday achieve, if we go by
> this precedence but the same can not be said of
> deliberate skipping of the 5th oblation).
> 
> This (cloning) is also akin to man taking up creation
> in his hand, which is a prohibited act as in the case
> of Vishwamithra. There are 2 sides to this issue. One
> is that since the soul descends through 5 oblations,
> human cloning without 5th oblation is impossible. If
> at all man succeeds in getting it done, it would be
> that of the birth of evil-doers whose evil karma would
> doom them to bad conditions of living. In other words
> the creator-man would face further problems in keeping
> up his `creation' than would achieve any positive
> results. 
> 
> Another side of it is the very undesirability or
> unsustainability of cloning. The sudden death of the
> first animal clone (Dolly, the sheep) showing signs of
> sudden  aging reminds one of similar trends noticed in
> the created world of Vishwamithra.
> It is by hearsay (from elders) that whatever was
> created by Vishwamithra fell short in some aspect from
> the original world created by the Creator. For
> instance there is a variety of curry leaves
> (karivEppilai) known as `Vishwamithra karivEpilai,
> which would grow yellow with aging. Whereas the
> original karivEppilai does not grow yellow. It just
> whithers. This might just be a figment of imagination
> (I don't know for sure whether such a variety of
> karivEppilai ever existed. Can any one clarify?) But
> the point that must be noted is that our system of
> knowledge does not foresee the creation and
> sustainability of anything that is not  part of the
> scheme of Creation by Brahman. Human cloning is one
> such thing.
> 
> Regards,
> Jayasree saranathan.
> 
> 
> 
>               
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