[Advaita-l] Re: Pa~nchapAdikAchArya

[Ramesh Krishnamurthy]

On 30/09/06, venkata subramanian <venkat_advaita at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Ramaji,
>
>   Can you please explain to me what is meant by "Sampradaya".
>

I am sure Ramakrishnan will be able to give a more nuanced reply, but
simply put, a saMpradAya is a guru-SiShya lineage over time - with
SiShya-s becoming guru-s and teaching  further SiShya-s, and so forth.

A comparison can be made with the word 'kula'. You belong to the same
kula as your father, your grandfather and so forth. Similarly, a
SiShya belongs to the same sampradaya as his guru, his guru's guru and
so forth.

Transmission of teachings through a sampradaya is a very important
feature of all the Hindu schools. In modern usage, the word sampradaya
is often used very loosely to mean 'denomination' or 'sect', but
strictly speaking, this usage is not correct.

dhanyosmi
Ramesh