Month: January 2018

An Ayudha when used in Ayudha puja is a literal weapon,and not supposed to be anything else

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Vayuna:…during Navarati the focus is on Sarasvati here and then each temple will have its own festival days

Devala: Why Sarasvatī?

Vayuna: The only part of Navaratri that is celebrated in KL is the last three days. Ayudha Puja basically and Sarasvati is the Devi that is worshipped.

Devala: Sarasvati is invoked in aydhas?Here,we celebrate Mahalaya+from shashthi onwards

Vayuna: Well the modern equivalents that the students keep. Books.

Devala: Books aren’t Ayudhas. What they call Vasant Panchami in North India is explicitly Sarasvati Puja here.

Vayuna: That is how the tradition came out to be here. Some keep pen also. Of course the farmers keep their instruments and factories their machinery

Devala: Vishvakarma Puja is the day for that(keeping instruments,machinery,etc). It’s the wrong day[for instrument pūjā].Also Skanda Purana I think explicitly spells out the procedure to worship Sarasvatī that day(on Vasant Panchami/Sarasvati Puja).

Vayuna: Here everything is conducted on the last three days[of Navaratri]. We keep the books on the evening of the eighth day and take them back on the morning of the 10th after puja.

Devala: But tools are worshipped in Vishvakarma Puja!As for Ayudhas…even a damn humble lathi will do!

Vayuna: Here its explained away as metaphorical. The knowledge in the books is the weapon.

Devala: Of course. I’ve also seen those explanations,but it is a wrong one.When days specially for sarasvatī(books/related stuff) and viśvakarmā(tools/related stuff) exist,the day for Ayudha Puja implies nothing but literal Ayudhas. What I am objecting to is the abuse of metaphor. By the way,Vishvakarma Puja falls on the last date of Bhadra in the Bengali calendar(basically,the last day of Bhadra on Sauramana calendars is supposed to be Vishvakarma Puja). And Sarasvatī Pūjā/Vasanta Pañcamī falls on the śuklapakṣa pañcamī of the Chandramana month of Māgha.

Vayuna: Well in a sense the metaphorical explanation works. Only the second varṇa has actual āyudhas. The others take it up as āpad-dharma.What āyudha does a brāhmaṇa have or a farmer or brahmacāri/student or artisan have except his tools?

Devala: Others too had it. Please note the cases listed here by a friend. And Medhatithi was not really having Muslims in mind. And in many cases,people from all varṇas ultimately did join armies. Call it āpaddharma or whatever.

Vayuna: Well yes,functionally most Nairs were of the second varṇa…as were a few Ezhavas. And yes yes ayudhas for self-defense should get more popular among Hindus. Ideally it would have made sense for only soldiers to worship Ayudhas. But since we are in Kali yuga and surrounded, everyone needs to do that.

Devala: Even Medhatithi recognized the need for weapons amongst the common folk. And I’m not even insisting on guns (though that’s a minimum). At least a humble lathi. We did have martial arts/traditions involving lathis alone.

 

Aspects of Hindu atheism

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Note:In this post,I am not going to consider Savarkar’s position. Having put that out of the way,let me put it out:In the classical darśanas of Hindu philosophy,not all of them accept an Īśvara,yes(a supreme God),but all of them were āstika,not nāstika(accepted the Veda as pramāṇa in some format or the other-at least accepting the śruti  and allied traditions as śabda uttered by an āpta). And the allied traditions of sāṃkhya and yoga accept the realms of devas,with the sutrakara in the third pada of the Yogasutras saying ‘jñāne sūrye saṃyamāt’ and the various commentators describing the knowledge of the realms of the devas which is gained in the method referred to in this sutra. Vaiśeṣika/Nyaya too end up taking the praxis of yoga for soiterological purposes,so nothing more needs to be said here,and Vaiśeṣika too admits the importance of the Veda. Purva Mimāṃsā may not accept an Īśvara,but its atheism is more of the ‘ackschually,there are no separate devatas apart from the mantra and the ritual.The deity is the mantra’ sort of thinking. And as to the position of Īśvara in Śaṇkarādvaita,this article explains it very nicely. I need not talk about the various other Vedantic schools.

Most people who take up the ‘Hindu atheist’ label are basically cowards who are too ashamed to admit that all their traditions spoke of devatās(regardless of whether they were capable of giving all the goals sought by their traditions or not). Not a single one of them denied the existence of devatās.

Gṛhastha life and vedānta (focusing on Advaita here)

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This thread and the succeeding comments made me remember the small notes from an orthodox sannyāsin and a friend of mine,and I am putting them in a jumbled form here.

So,in orthodox circles,there are three commentaries on the Gītā that are famous.

  1. Ādi Śaṅkara’s commentary-corresponds to śravana
  2. Madhusudanasarasvatī’s commentary-corresponds to manana
  3. Shankarananda’s commentary-corresponds to nidhidhyānsana(and these are studied in that order).

So, Śaṅkarānanda in his commentary on the 3rd chapter of the Gita states that a brāhmaṇa should not renounce until he has fulfilled the three ṛṇas(debts).

  1. Deva-ṛṇa(debt to the devas) by performing yāgas as laid out in the śruti
  2. Ṛṣirṇa(debt to the ṛṣis) by doing vedādhyayanam of svaśākhā and other vedas
  3. Pitṛ ṛṇa(debt to the forefathers) by begetting a child legitimately [and obviously raising him/her properly and so on and so forth]

As a note:On asking that friend,he suggested(for caturthas),the ṛṇas would be discharged as

  1. Deva-ṛṇa-worship devas through the paddhatis available(paurāṇika/tāntrika)
  2. Ṛṣirṇa-propagate vedāṇgas/itihāsa/tantra
  3. Pitṛ ṛṇa-same as the one for dvijas

(Note:This doesn’t mean that brāhmaṇas/other dvijas cannot pass on tāntrika/itihāsa/other lore)

So,the tradition already has the solution within itself,and it needs to be revitalized.

 

Also,what Bajirao did would be quite inappropriate from an Advaitin’s point of view. Śrīdharasvāmīn in his gloss on the very first śloka states

‘iha khalu sakalavanditacaraṇaḥ paramakāruṇuko bhagavān devakīnandanastattvajñānavijṛmbhita-śokamohavibhraṃśita-vivekatayā nijadharmaparityāga-pūrvakaparadharmābhisandhinamarjunaṃ dharmajñānarahasyopadeśaplavena tasmācchokamohasāgaraāduddhāraḥ|..’

 

A short summary(with emphasis on the bolded words would be that the ever-worshippable Śrī Kṛṣṇa rescued Arjuna from the sea of sorrow and delusion,under whose influence he was about to give up his own svadharma(of a warrior and ruler) and take up another’s dharma(that of an ascetic) by imparting to him, jṇānarahasyopadeśa. The Peshva had committed that same mistake Arjuna had done(maybe due to a different cause),and could hardly be said to be upholding vedantic ideals.