[Advaita-l] Narayana - Word

[Sankaran Aniruddhan]

namaste,

>The presence of 'sa hariH' is not an obstacle to say
>that the diety who is extolled as 'yamantaH samudre'
>or the husband of laxmI and hrI is not Vishnu, but
>nArAyaNa. 'hari' can mean one of Vishnu, Indra, yama,
>monkey. Vishnu and Indra can be ruled out to avoid
>punarukti. So, this 'hari' could be yama. Why is that
>possibility left out, before gathering support for the
>conjecture that Narayana is not Vishnu?

Other possibilities according to the Cologne sanskrit lexicon at
http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/indologie/tamil/mwd_search.html
are Siva, Sukra, Jackal, Parrot etc (there are many more).

>Coming back to absence of 'sa hariH', refer to the
>mahopaniShat (rather, whatever is available) that has
>a similar passage without 'sa hariH'. This text also
>talks of birth of Mahadeva and hiraNyagarbha from
>Narayana. The non-mention of Vishnu being born out of
>Narayana, yet mentioned later, is the proof that the
>words refer to the same being.

The Nrisimhatapini upanishad also has the same passage, but with the sa
hari:. The kaivalya upanishad has "sa brahmA sa shivaH sendraH so.axaraH
paramaH svarAt. sa Eva vishnu: sa prANa: sa kAlogni: sa chandramA:||" As far
as I know, smArtas chant the nArAyaNa sUktam as "sa brahma sa shivaH sa
hariH sEndraH so.axaraH paramaH svarAt" only.

>> I think MadhvachArya used the Rg Veda because
>> he belonged to the Rg Veda SAkhA.

>Where did you get that information?

It was just a guess.

>The purpose behind writing RgBhashya is supposed to
>show how passages, alleged to belong to the artifical
>division of karma-kANDa, can be interpreted at
>adhyAtma level to give knowledge of Supreme.
>R^igbhAShya and karma-nirNaya are meant for that.

But then, the yajur veda is more intimately connected with the rituals,
isn't it? Wouldn't a yajurveda-bhashya be more appropriate for this?

>That is not possible. The 'nArAyaNa' refers to the
>attribute of having waters as a resting place.
> In any
>case, nirguNa brahman is supposed to be without 'nAma'
>and 'rUpa'. Forgot that?

>From the description given in the nArAyaNa sUktam, nArAyaNa is "nirguNa
brahman".

Aniruddhan

Sruti smRti purANAnAm Alayam karuNAlayam
namAmi bhagavatpAda Sam.karam lokaSam.karam