Fake Sankaracharya

[Venkataramani K.]

In a message dated 11/20/02 9:47:22 PM Pacific Standard Time,
jagchat01 at YAHOO.COM writes:

> "Vedic life envisages both external rituals and inner purity. I am totally
> for the inner purity part. I am only speaking against some of those rituals
> which may have been important at the time when they were prescribed but
> have lost their relevance now. Like getting girls married as and when they
> attain puberty, not letting them read the vedas and recite the Gayatri. Not
> letting low caste Hindus enter certain temples and participate in certain
> functions and so on and so forth. These practices have proved to be our
> Ahcilles heel and led to conversions."

I resonate with this view. Shastras were codified at certain point of time,
probably as a response to social conditions prevailing then. There is no need
to adhere to them today. Many of them are obscurantist and even down right
inhuman. Perhaps they were so even then. Whether or not conversions exist, we
still need to cleanse  Hinduism of some of the evils such as the inequities
mentioned above. No matter how much regard I have for Kanchi Sankara mutt,
some of their practices are casteist and destroy Hinduism from within.
Progressive thinking is not against the tenets of Hinduism; it is not an
obstruction to spiritual progress either.
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