The scheme of involution(a vaiSNavized sAGkhya scheme,it may be called) runs like this(1st skandha,15th adhyaya,shlokas 41-42)
Another place where sAGkhya appears in the bhAgavata purANa is in the 3rd skandha
https://bhargavabhashana.wordpress.com/2017/07/16/creation-as-per-srimad-bhagavatam-3-26/
I am excluding the Durgotsava-s here,since they are purANAntargata from here,and are temporary. But amongst shAkta AgAmas,I really am not able to think of any one that is specifically meant for parArthArchanA. I know there are many shrines embodying shrIvidyA,old and new,but the AgAma as such presupposes worship at home. Even AgAmas devoted to parArthArchanA like pA~ncharAtra,vaikhAnasa and siddhAnta are evolutes of systems that presupposed home worship. Even early shaiva siddhAnta did not really have much of parArtha-archanA,but a few texts do know of temples for exclusively a sAdhaka’s purposes,so initiates would want to make sure that no one else knows the shrine/not allow non-initiates in the shrine.
(Note:I am not questioning the legitimacy of those devI temples).
This is from before its Viṣṇu sahasranāma begins. I’ll post only the relevant ślokas
नामोच्चारणमात्रेण महापापात् प्रमुच्यते।
राम रामेति रामेति रामेति च पुनर्जपन्॥
स चाण्डालो’पि पूतात्मा जायते नात्र संशयः।
कुरुक्षेत्रं तथा काशी गया वै द्वारका तथा॥
सर्व्वं तीर्थं कृतं तेन नामोच्चारणमात्रतः।
कृष्ण कृष्णेति कृष्णेति इति वा यो जपन् पठन्॥
इह लोकं पैर्त्यज्य मोदते विष्णुसन्निधौ।
नृसिंहेति मुदा विप्र सततं प्रजपन् पठन्॥
In IAST
nāmoccāraṇamātreṇa mahāpāpāt pramucyate।
rāma rāmeti rāmeti rāmeti ca punarjapan॥
sa cāṇḍālo’pi pūtātmā jāyate nātra saṃśayaḥ।
kurukṣetraṃ tathā kāśī gayā vai dvārakā tathā॥
sarvvaṃ tīrthaṃ kṛtaṃ tena nāmoccāraṇamātrataḥ।
kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇeti kṛṣṇeti iti vā yo japan paṭhan॥
iha lokaṃ pairtyajya modate viṣṇusannidhau।
nṛsiṃheti mudā vipra satataṃ prajapan paṭhan॥
I got this(and the sahasranāma of the Padma Purāṇa) in a book titled শ্রীশ্রীবিষ্ণুর সহস্রনাম published by অক্ষয লাইব্রেরী. The author seems to be a certain দীন ভক্তদাস. Incidentally,this same version of the sahasranāma(with a different introduction) is also found in the North Indian Kṛṣṇa centred Nārada Pāñcarātra. The links to it are below
Trigger warning:Religion. You can frankly speaking,sod off if you are anti-religious and moan about whatever -ist or patriarch or whatever I am in your cubbyholes.
(It’s primarily a reaction to this glorified blog that is a newspaper column: https://www.hindustantimes.com/bollywood/thank-you-sridevi-our-queer-icon/story-Oy6SST3RhHpSfrWSh9MZZM.html)
we saw the promise of a future where we wouldn’t lie about who we were and what we liked
All of that passes away. Though I wish I had someone in my arms,and someone who I could talk with/at-on the same level.
My queer icons are more off the beat than what activists would put forward. My icons would be the poet Raskhan,and the author Mishima. Only one muddled by activist babblings can not appreciate Mishima’s vīryam(a pale reflection of Samkarṣaṇa’s bala*),or the devotion that Raskhan put to Mādhava,which makes even every single shackle insignificant before long. It is that devotion which grants the freedom from every single shackle as easily as one breaks a rotting thread. And it’s this devotion which is in the very form of jñāna which is very rare to obtain. The yati who carries Lakṣmī’s husband in him has more freedom than any of us will ever have! (Need not even be a yati strictly speaking,Aghoremani Devi is a living testimony to that).
I do recognize that this path(and my inclinations) are not for everyone,though.Few would care,anyway. Maybe I am crazy.
*A reference to Saṃkarṣaṇa’s two predominating qualities amongst the vyūhas.
Some mentalities like the one mentioned in this section(page 71 of the PDF document) of the Laghu Yoga Vasiṣṭha set in stably only when the vāsanās favourable to generating that state of mind set in. They can be generated in various ways,like:
(Note:This is not against the Swacch Bharat program or against technologies for public sanitation,etc)
By reducing the component of cleanliness to only just toilets,clean public,etc,one is likely to miss out the other dimensions of śuci.
Just what does this term śauca mean?
śauca means purity at not just the individual level,but at a particular environment and communal and familial level.It is not just physical purity(avoidance of bacteria),but of the surroundings,the body,the sukṣma dēha and the general atmosphere around.
And this is not really separable from our deities(that śloka apavitraḥ pavitrō vā sarvāvasthāṃ gatō’pi vā । yaḥ smarētpuṇḍarīkākṣaṃ sa bāhyābhyantaraḥ śuciḥ ॥ comes to my mind). And it does make sense. Purity and the deva,who is the very embodiment of an āgāmika(deva specific or smārta) temple,are inseparable. It is only with keeping Nārāyaṇa at the centre,as noted in that verse,does one realize the fullest import of what śuci means,and not through secularized stuff,which runs contrary to Hindu frameworks and ideologies).
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.
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.
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.
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).
As a note:On asking that friend,he suggested(for caturthas),the ṛṇas would be discharged as
(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.
. (Śrīmadbhāgavata Purāṇa 12.11-1-26)
padmavajra 