Request: upamanyu

[Ravisankar S. Mayavaram]

On Sat, 12 Sep 1998, Swami Vishvarupananda wrote:

> >to him. In fact, shrI kumarila bhaTTa who is also an avatara of
> >Lord shaNmukha entered the fire and left the world. But there
> >reasons given for entering the fire was different though. This is
> >another interesting connection betweern these two. I learnt this
> >from the talks of shrI chandrasekharendra sarasvati.
>
> Will you tell me more about this? If you don't want to post it, then in
> private.

namaskAram

The reason why shrI kumarila bhaTTa entered the fire (made of
husk) is given in mAdhava vidyAraNya's shankara digvijaya. shrI
kumarila bhaTTa gives two reasons. First one is for deceiving the
buddhist teachers. In order to defeat them in debates, kumarila
wanted to learn to more about the teachings. To achieve this he
feigned as a student and entered there monastery and learnt the
fundamentals of their teachings and their methods of debate.  But
during the course of the study,  they found out his true intent
and threw him out from the top of their building. But kumarila
escaped, as he called veda-s for refuge. But he did lose one of
his eyes though (beacuse he used an "if" in his statement , "if
veda-s are true let me escape unhurt". "if" indicates a doubt).
Later he accomplished his mission of defeating the buddhists and
silencing them.  In fact it was kumarila who was instrumental in
getting rid of the buddhists from the sacred land bhAratam.
However, he did commit guru-droha, as he deceived his buddhist
teachers. For this, according to veda-s, the expiation is dying a
cruel death. To fulfil this expiation, he burnt himself slowly in
the fire made of rice husk. The second reason is in the
arguments, kumarila refuted the role of Ishvara in giving the
karma phala.


In the case of jnAnasambhandar, he along with many of the family
members and devotees, entered the jothi created by Lord shiva and
went to shivalOkam. Parents and relatives of jnAnasambhandar
somehow forced him to marry. At the end of the marriage, he
pleaded to Lord shiva to save him from the traps of saMsara. In
response to the prayer, Lord shiva created a fire and asked him
to enter it with others. You can read more about this in
thiruvILaiyADal purANam

I am sorry for being brief. YOu can find more in the original
references.

 >
> >SHE who is red colored everywhere. According to shruti, "asousya
> >tAmrairaruNaH" - which means HE is red and copper colored.
>
> Do you where in the shruti this occurs and to whom it refers?

This is from shrI rudram according to the tamil book I have, the
book from which I type the bhAShyam does not indicate this.


With respects,
Ravi
bhava shankara deshikame sharaNam