[Advaita-l] Grammar and logic taking a beating, as usual

[V Subrahmanian]

Here goes the mahA pandita appropriating to himself the scholarship to
independently 'translate' verses from the Mahabharata  'properly':

http://narayanastra.blogspot.in/2012/05/bhagavad-gita-shiva-
in-vibhuti-yoga-and.html?showComment=1499072210362#c4748864216273963605

//I have also translated the entire slOka properly, as Sacred Texts which
is resorted to by the likes of Veerashaiva and the Mahapashupatastra author
et al. lends itself to all wrong interpretations.//

Just see here one specimen of how he substantiates his claim:

nihatAMstena vai pUrvaM hatavAnasi yAnripUn|| aprameyaprabhAvaM taM
devadevamumApatim| namasva devaM prayato vishveshaM haramakShayam||

The 'panditam-manyah' translates the part of the verse: namasva devaM
prayato vishveshaM.

//“prayatO devaM” – The god who has purified himself by austerities.
Alternatively, it means the god who has subdued his senses.//

The pandita did not even realize what he is doing. That part of the verse
is an instruction to Arjuna by Krishna: Bow to that Deva who is the Lord of
the Universe, by first yourself becoming pure.   [prayataH = ritually pure
or well prepared for a solemn rite.  http://www.spokensanskrit.de/i
ndex.php?beginning=0+&tinput=+prayataH&trans=Translate]  A very popular
usage is: शुचिः प्रयतो भूत्वा [having become pure, internal and
external...commence this rite. एकाग्रः *प्रयतो भूत्वा* शिवस्याराधने रतः ।।
५ A Skanda puranam verse says:  With one-pointed mind, becoming purified,
he was deeply involved in the worship of Shiva..]

Our pandita is not even aware that the two words 'prayato' and 'devam' are
not in the same vibhakti in order for them to be in an adjective-noun
relationship. 'prayatah' is in prathamA and 'devam' is in dvitIyA. Thus,
the word 'prayataH' should go with Arjuna (who is not named in this verse)
but the word 'namasva', a verb in the madhyama purusha, is intended to
Arjuna. So, the meaning is: Having purified yourself, worship Shiva.

In his enthusiasm driven by Shiva devesha to downplay every adjective used
by Krishna (and Veda Vyasa) genuinely applicable to Shiva, this Shiva
deveshi goes on and on to refute Krishna and Veda Vyasa and thereby shame
them under the illusion he is actually shaming Shiva.

For example, the word 'akshayam' in the verse simply means: Shiva who is
free of decay, that is eternal.  The Shiva-dveshi does not want this
epithet to go to Shiva who cannot be akshaya; only Vishnu can be eternal.
So he cooks up a completely out of the world meaning for that word:

//“akShayaM” – “kShaya” means residing or dwelling. “akShaya” means the
opposite of that- he is not residing in the experience of sense objects as
he has destroyed desire.//

How awful! There is nothing in the verse that warrants a 'residence' sense
to that word. With his imbecile imagination and dogged by desperation he
imports a meaning that is wrong in this context. How can someone who is
Vishvesha not be literally akshaya? Thus, with an aprasiddha interpretation
the pandita is making a fool of himself. He takes his readers for granted
and goes on deluding them.

Just one more specimen of this nonsense:  The word 'aprameya-prabhAva' of
the MB verse, an epithet of Shiva, is passionately hijacked to Vishnu by
this Shiva dveshi pandita:

//“apramEya-prabhAva” – One whose strength or glory (prabhAva) is the Lord
nArAyaNa, who is “apramEya” as he is beyond the sense-organs of even Brahma
and the other gods. There are several pramANAs where Brahma and others
claim they do not fully know vishNu, and thus the latter is hailed as
“apramEya” in the sahasranAma.//

While the word means: one whose glory/strength is beyond comprehension, the
above interpretation only smacks of Krishna's extreme egoistic. Why should
he ask Arjuna to bow to someone who has zero content of himself but has
everything that is of someone else?  Instead of doing all that, he could
simply desist Arjuna from bowing to Shiva and instead ask him to bow to
Krishna himself. Arke chen madhu vindeta kimartham parvatam vrajet? If
honey is available in the courtyard, why go all the way to the mountain to
get it? The whole exercise of Krishna initiating a dialogue with Arjuna is
a waste, meaningless, if Krishna and Veda Vyasa had the evil intentions of
this shiva-dveshi.

On the other hand, Krishna is acknowledging that Shiva's glory is beyond
comprehension. It is only because of this greatness that Krishna undertook
severe penance to seek boons from Shiva. The Kailasa Yatra episode is well
recorded in the Mahabharata and in the Harivamsha and cited by Shankara in
the VSN bhashya. Shiva in the Harivamsha reminds of Krishna's earlier
severe penance in the Mainaka parvata, as Narayana, to seek great boons
from him. This is recorded elaborately in the Drona parva of the MB.

In the Harivamśa, Veda Vyāsa records the fact that Hari meditated  upon the
Jagatpati Śiva in Kailasa and worshiped Him and obtained the ‘Chakra’
(discus):
यत्र लेभे हरिश्चक्रमुपास्य बहुभिर्दिनैः ।
पुष्करैः शतपत्रैश्च नेत्रेण च जगत्पतिम् ॥ 3.84.11 ॥ [The Mahabharata verse
the pandita has tried to dabble with and miserably failed has the word
'vishvesham' and the Harivamsha has the term 'jagatpatim', both epithets,
meaning the same, Veda Vyasa uses for Shiva.]

Where (Kailāsa) Hari obtained the ‘Chakram’ by meditating and worshiping
for several days the Lord of the Universe, Śiva, by lotus of a special
variety and by his eye.Pleased by his devotion Śiva granted Viṣṇu the
Sudarshana Chakram.

Sridhara Swamin, another esteemed 'vaishnava' advaitin :), in his
commentary to the Viṣṇu purāṇam at the very outset, refers to the above
event succinctly to substantiate the fact that Viṣṇu is called ‘lotus-eyed’:

// ……..  śivārādhanārthaṁ puṇḍarīkīkṛtam akṣi yeneti vā—puṇḍarīkam paraṁ
dhāma akṣam avyayam ucyate ity-ādi ślokokta-vyutpattyā puṇḍarīkīkṣeti
sambodhanam iti vā |   //

The gist is: The Lord’s eye is lotus-like because he ‘made’ his eye a lotus
in order to worship Śiva.  [There is a story which says that when Hari
resolved to worship Hara with a thousand lotuses, at the end, (owing to a
loving trick played by Hara), one lotus fell short of the number. Hari,
undaunted by the shortage, offered his own eye as a lotus and completed his
worship.]
Under the delusion that he is glorifying Vishnu, the pandita has ended up
disparaging him by establishing with great effort that Vishnu has to depend
on the proxy of Brahma and Shiva for his own glory!!

With such awful 'translations' these bloggers keep deceiving their gullible
readers.It is time they retire from such mockery of Vishnu and engage in
true prayer to cleanse themselves of the sin born out of Shiva devesha and
Vishnu viDambana. Another useful activity for them is learn the basics of
Sanskrit from a good scholar.

Read here to see some more samples of this pandita's excursions with
Sanskrit grammar:

https://adbhutam.wordpress.com/2017/06/13/a-murder-of-sati-saptami/


http://www.mediafire.com/view/mu11z19uvry6p50/Tejas_traiyambakam_A.pdf


https://adbhutam.wordpress.com/2015/02/08/madhusudana-saraswati-misrepresented/



Om Tat Sat