[Advaita-l] Ashwamedha Yajna in Hasan. No Vamachara Tantrika practices

[Venkatesh Murthy]

Namaste

On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 9:04 PM, Vidyasankar Sundaresan
<svidyasankar at hotmail.com> wrote:
> All I am saying is that in the kali yuga, the gupta rulers performed aSvamedha
> and later some Rajput rulers too performed it. And I am further saying that
> these rulers under whom dharma and other aspects of our culture flourished,
> must have sought advice of dharmaSAstra experts who obviously thought in
> a different way from what you present. That is all. It is a matter of historical
> record.
>
It means they were not following Dharma. But many Kings did not do
Ashwamedha out of respect for Dharma. You are not seeing this.

> I am sure you are aware that the same brahmavaivarta purAna verse that
> says aSvamedha should not be done in kali yuga also says that saMnyAsa is
> prohibited in kali yuga. And I am sure you can find arguments about why men
> of today lack the strength of character and will power to be saMnyAsin-s. You
> will thereby be castigating all the vedAnta traditions today, in their entirety.
> Sankara himself lived in the kali yuga and gave great impetus to the vigorous
> tradition of saMnyAsa in advaita vedAnta. madhva lived many centuries after
> Sankara and there is a vigorous tradition of saMnyAsa in dvaita vedAnta also.
> rAmAnuja lived in between these two in time and there is saMnyAsa in the
> SrIvaishNava tradition too, although of a different kind than seen in the advaita
> and dvaita schools.
>
There is a Guru Parampara for Sannyasis from Adi Shankara to modern
day. Where is Sampradaya for Ashwamedha Yajna from a King in history
to modern day? There is no Sampradaya for Ashwamedha even in recent
Kings. Because there is Sannyasa Sampradaya we can accept it. But
because there is no Ashwamedha Sampradaya we cannot accept it if
someone today is doing it. If there is no Sampradaya there is no
trained Srauta Brahmins to act as Rutwijas in this Yajna. No Veda
Pathashala is training Brahmins for Ashwamedha Yajna. You are missing
this point.

> The lesson is, do not view these purANic pronouncements in isolation, as if
> they were etched in stone. AcArya-s of various traditions, whose knowledge
> of dharma was far superior to yours and mine, have demonstrated otherwise,
> by their lives, teachings and actions. Please do not venture to judge what is
> dharma and what is not, without first getting all the facts and without taking
> SishTAcAra into account.
>
Sishtacara is also against Ashwamedha. No Sista wants to sacrifice and
other animals and do indecent acts.

>From many angles like Dharma Sastra text books, Sampradaya and
Sisctacara it is wrong to do Ashwamedha now.

> Vidyasankar
>


-- 
Regards

-Venkatesh