[Advaita-l] Re: Brahman, Isvara, and VishishthAdvaita

[Siva Senani Nori]

Annapureddy Siddhartha Reddy <annapureddy at gmail.com> wrote:
   
  -- Here is one problem I see with this explanation. Why introduce any Isvara
to explain this world? Maybe the combination of big-bang (or string theory) + evolution + some other theories is good-enough to explain why the world is the way it is.
   
  Saluations!
   
  Here, I speak on my own, without referring to traditional views: Who was the agent of the big bang? Let's say, some entity - to me that entity is God or god. If the big bang was a purely random event, even then, that out of the probable infinite possibilities (a small wimper, a super globule forever contracting into a black hole, or most probably nothing), that big bang actually happened is, to me, perfectly tenable as the realisation of god's will. (Qualifier: All this strictly from the relative view-point, as opposed to the Absolute view-point).
   
  None of this answers 'why introduce Isvara' - many would be happy with the big bang being a random event, and not bothering about somebody's will being realised and all that. Sruti is the pramANa for Isvara's existence.
  
-- Another problem is this assumption that Isvara has some special role for
humans in this world. For example, all the creation theories which say that men descended from Manu, when all evidence seems to point to the evolution of men from apes.
   
  - I believe our tradition does not differentiate between humans and non-humans. The PaSupati is the Lord of all world. This is not to say that our ancestors somehow anticipated Darwin and his ilk and all that - just that Isvara is the master of all. 
   
  There are other arguments as well 'disproving the vedic religion'. For instance, performance of putrakaameshTi does not always result in birth of sons; the sacred peeThams and temples cannot escape destruction at the hands of the impure (mlechchas); in short, as is said in Telugu - mantraalaki chintakaayalu raalavu - (reciting mantras does not give the tamarind fruit: some action is required). The answer is usually not the direct experiment, the gold standard of modern science. It, rather, is an involved explanation of how the old was gold, how things were perfect in the kritayuga, and how decline from there was inevitable - kaaladharmam - how great people gradually lost the power to curse (the favourite shop-talk of many brahmins - and not how the power to realise Brahman was lost) - and how we will degenerate into total annihilation and how there would be a new creation.

  Regards
  Senani

		
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