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SriRangaSri List Archive: Message 00051 Aug 2002

 
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Dear Sri S.V. Samy and readers of SRS:

namo narayana!

Thank you for your note.

My note was only about the meaning of the English
word cited. Hope not to side track the interesting
discussion.

Many use English words without realizing what they
actually mean. For instance, when citing chronology,
many use the suffix AD, like 1500 AD, etc. But, AD
here means "in the year of my Lord Jesus Christ".
This is particularly grievous for Sri Vaishnavas for whom
there is no one but Sriman Narayana. As Kulasekarazhvar
says, like the patient who loves the doctor who treats him
with painful cuts and burns, even if Sriman Narayana gives
us sorrow and grief, for us there is no one but Sriman
Narayana. Therefore, we must never use the abbreviation AD.
In stead, use the chronology suffixes, BCE and CE, with
BCE = Before Common Era and CE = Common Era. BCE and CE
are generally well accepted and understood abbreviations.

Coming back to Agnostic, it is quite probable there
are no equivalent word in Tamil/Sanskrit for Agnostic.
It is equally probable that there is no equivalent
word for Atheist and Theist. The dictionary meaning
of Atheist is, "one who denies the existence of God".
For Theist the meaning is, "belief in the existence
of a god or gods". The usual translation for Atheist
is "nAStikan", but it is not correct. nAStikan only
means one who rejects Vedas. Thus, there are many
devout theists who are nAStikAs. In fact we could
say that most Theists are nAStikAs.

regards,

-- dileepan

p.s.

At 03:52 PM 8/27/2002 +0500, you wrote:
Hari Om.

In our tradition it is customary not the spell out
praNavam in public.





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