[Advaita-l] Advaita-l Digest, Vol 81, Issue 15

[V Subrahmanian]

On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 9:27 AM, Dr.Guruprasad <dr.guruji at gmail.com> wrote:

> HI dear HAribhaktas
>
>     Can you please tell me is there any guru's in our tradition who is
> enlighted like Sri Raghavendra swamy , VAdiraja Swamy , raghuttama tirtha
> of
> Dwaita tradition...
>

Namaste.

There have been several Acharyas of the Advaita sampradaya who were
jivanmuktas and also siddha puruSha-s.  People belonging to different
sampradayas/castes and even other religions have been devoted to these
Acharyas.  I have personally known Madhva and SrivaiShNava individuals and
even whole families being very ardently devoted to the Sringeri/Kanchi
Acharya/s of the present or the past. Sri Sadashiva Brahmendra of Nerur, Sri
Sridhara Swamin of Sajjad (Sagar) in Karnataka are just two names of
aparoksha jnanis who had/have a very great following even after the Mahatmas
have ceased to live in their physical bodies.



> I have also seen that many advaitis wordhip raghavendra swamy & vadiraja
> swamy of sonde.but they have condemned advaita to great extent & the slokas
> of these swamy do says that* jnaatwa advaita matam halahala samam tyaktwa
> samaakhyataye*.....(raghavendra mangalashtakam)
>
> Can Any body answer these questions....
>

I have heard from none other than Dr.Anandatirtha V.Nagasampige, Director,
Purnaprajna Samshodhana mandiram, Bangalore, a Madhva institution, say in an
open lecture on the Acharya-traya:

//Sri Vadiraja Tirtha in his magnum opus 'Yukti mallika' has said that the
three Acharyas were like brothers of the same household.  They might have
had internal differences but when it came to defending the Vedic tradition
from the atheistic onslaughts, they are together.  //

I am yet to get the exact words contained in the above Book.  Yet, despite
this sentiment expressed, we do see Sri Vadiraja indulging in Advaita
criticism in the strongest terms.  This I would say is to be in line with
their mUlAchArya's ways.  I have, like some other scholars too, noticed that
over the centuries the stiff anti-advaitic rhetoric that Sri Madhvacharya
instituted and continued by Sri Jayatirtha and Sri VyAsatirtha has toned
down.  One specific indication of this is:

While Sri Madhwacharya refused to consider Advaita as a Vedic school (he has
quoted the Maitrayani Upanishad to show that Advaitins are a-vaidika,
nAstika on par with Bauddha) such a stance has not been carried on for
example at the hands of Sri Vadiraja.  He has said in the Yukti mallika :
//It is not that the 'other'  schools have no faith in the Veda; only that
they give wrong/different meanings to the Veda and hence differ from 'our'
school.//  As for the modern scholars and writers (both of the Ramanuja and
the Madhva traditions) there is no doubt at all that they have come to give
up the 'nAstika' label once attached to Advaita.  They have no doubt
continued with the 'pracchanna bauddha' rhetoric only on academic grounds,
to be in tune with their marked line of thinking established by their
founding Acharyas.  For example I received the following comment to one of
my blogs

http://adbhutam.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/shankara-and-purandara-dasa/

from a Madhva follower:

//nachiketa konapur said January 29, 2010 at 7:16
am<http://adbhutam.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/shankara-and-purandara-dasa/#comment-68>
e<http://adbhutam.wordpress.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=editcomment&c=68>

respected sir,
.....  i don’t mean to disrespect the great Shankaracharya who did a great
job by reestablishing supremacy of hinduism and vedas......//

This article might address some of your questions/concerns:

http://www.kamakotimandali.com/sringeri/vilasa_2.html


Regards,
subrahmanian.v

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