[Advaita-l] Buddhism, Advaita and Dvaita - 1

[ShankaraBharadwaj Khandavalli]

Namaste,

"Since we are humans, our ancestors depicted the devata-s with emotions to make  
them more relatable to us. Normally this is done for many purposes: "

Most importantly, for the bhakta Devata is a living presence, in which one 
confides, to which one surrenders, and the one whose presence makes one easily 
give up the ownership and cultivate a sense of agency and get the feel of one's 
own insignificance. 


Shankar

Satish Arigela satisharigela at yahoo.com 
Mon Jun 13 07:43:21 CDT 2011 
________________________________
 
>1) Are the artistic depiction of Visnu as blue bodied with four hands  >a true 
>representation of the god visnu when he takes form in  >Vaikunth??? Or does he 
>have no physical body in any world and so is the  >artistic depiction  purely 
>symbolic. >Same question for Lord Shiva depicted as an ascetic with snakes for  
>>adornment.  Are the forms of devata-s purely symbolic or are their forms real?  
>The answer would be yes and no. The form of the devata is imagined by the  
>mantrin usually or in some cases the devata appears in some particular form  
>without the upAsaka having to imagine in that particular form, when the mantra  
>japa is done regularly with proper training.  But for a better treatment of the 
>topic I suggest you read the following: I do  not subcribe to the following 100% 
>but most of it I agree with.  
>http://www.kamakotimandali.com/blog/index.php?p=846&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1  An 
>alternate view would be to say the devata-s are real i.e. as real as this  world 
>and hence as unreal.    >2) IS there a physical place called Vaikunth?? or 
>Shivaloka or  >brahmaloka??  No.  >3) The puranas describe Lord Shiva and Visnu 
>as gods with emotions and  >involved with human beings activities. Did these 
>gods appear on Earth  >in those physical forms to help their devotees.  Since we 
>are humans, our ancestors depicted the devata-s with emotions to make  them more 
>relatable to us. Normally this is done for many purposes: 1) To convey  a moral 
>2) To illustrate the significance of a mantra or 3) To impress upon the  readers 
>some finer aspects of any siddhAnta and likewise a few more purposes  including 
>illustrating some ancient( or a recurring) astronomical phenomena. Or  in some 
>cases a story is narrated with devata-s displaying emotions just for  vinoda 
>i.e. entertainment.  Sometimes some people are seen as incarnations of a devata. 
>In those cases they  of-course should appropriately be shown as going through 
>all human emotions.  Rgds 
>