Post by krsiyer on Jul 24, 2012 15:39:57 GMT 5.5
The Vedas - the Root of All – Part I
Our religion consists of two major divisions, Saivism and Vaisnavism. The doubt arises as to whether we are speaking here of two separate faiths or of a single one. Christianity too has two major divisions but people belonging to both conduct worship in the name of the same God. In Buddhism we have the Hinayana and Mahayana streams but they do not make two separate faiths since both are based on the teachings of the same founder, the Buddha.
Do Saivas and Vaisnavas worship the same god? No, however it be with ordinary Vaisnavas, their acaryas or teachers never go anywhere near a Siva temple. Their god is Visnu, never Siva. In the opinion of the worshippers of Visnu, Siva is also one of his (Visnu's) devotees. There are extremists among Saivas also according to whom Visnu is not a god but a devotee of Siva. How then can the two groups be said to belong to the same religion?
Are they to be regarded as belonging to the same faith by virtue of their having a common scripture? The divisions [sects] of Christianity have one common scripture, the Bible; so too is the Qur'an the common holy book for all divisions of Islam. Is such the case with Saivas and Vaisnavas? Saivas have the Tirumurai as their religious text, while Vaisnavas have the Nalayira-Divyaprabandham as their sacred work. For Saivas and Vaisnavas thus the deities as well as the scriptures are different. How it be claimed that both belong to the same religion?
Though divided into Saivas and Vaisnavas, we have been saved by the fact that the white man brought us together under a common name, "Hindu". But for this, what would have been our fate? In village after village, we would have been fragmented into separate religious groups- Saivas, Vaisnavas, Saktas, worshippers of Muruga, Ganapati, Ayyappa, and so on.
Further, in these places followers of religions like Christianity and Islam would have predominated. Now two regions of our subcontinent have become Pakistan, Had we not been brought together with the label of Hindu, the entire subcontinent would have become Pakistan. The very same men who created Pakistan through their evil design and sowed the seeds of differences among us with their theory of two races- Aryans and Dravidians- unwittingly did us a good turn by calling us Hindu, thereby bringing into being a country called "India. " So do we belong to one religion or we are divided into two different faiths?
The belief that Saivas and Vaisnavas have separate deities and religious works does not represent the truth. Though the present outlook of the two groups suggests that they represent different faiths, the truth will be revealed if we examine their prime criptures. The saints who composed the Tirumurai of the Saivas and the Nalayira-Divyaprabandham of the Vaisnavas never claimed that these works of theirs were the prime religious texts of respective sects. Nor did they regard themselves as founders of any religion. Vaisnavism existed before the Azhvars and so too there was Saivism before the Nayanmars. The original scripture of both sects is constituted by the Vedas. Saivas describe Isvara thus:
Vedamodarangamayinanai
Vedanathan, Vedagitan, aranan kan
Jaya jaya sankara, hara hara sankara !
Source: Voice of Paramacharya – Hindu Dharma.
Our religion consists of two major divisions, Saivism and Vaisnavism. The doubt arises as to whether we are speaking here of two separate faiths or of a single one. Christianity too has two major divisions but people belonging to both conduct worship in the name of the same God. In Buddhism we have the Hinayana and Mahayana streams but they do not make two separate faiths since both are based on the teachings of the same founder, the Buddha.
Do Saivas and Vaisnavas worship the same god? No, however it be with ordinary Vaisnavas, their acaryas or teachers never go anywhere near a Siva temple. Their god is Visnu, never Siva. In the opinion of the worshippers of Visnu, Siva is also one of his (Visnu's) devotees. There are extremists among Saivas also according to whom Visnu is not a god but a devotee of Siva. How then can the two groups be said to belong to the same religion?
Are they to be regarded as belonging to the same faith by virtue of their having a common scripture? The divisions [sects] of Christianity have one common scripture, the Bible; so too is the Qur'an the common holy book for all divisions of Islam. Is such the case with Saivas and Vaisnavas? Saivas have the Tirumurai as their religious text, while Vaisnavas have the Nalayira-Divyaprabandham as their sacred work. For Saivas and Vaisnavas thus the deities as well as the scriptures are different. How it be claimed that both belong to the same religion?
Though divided into Saivas and Vaisnavas, we have been saved by the fact that the white man brought us together under a common name, "Hindu". But for this, what would have been our fate? In village after village, we would have been fragmented into separate religious groups- Saivas, Vaisnavas, Saktas, worshippers of Muruga, Ganapati, Ayyappa, and so on.
Further, in these places followers of religions like Christianity and Islam would have predominated. Now two regions of our subcontinent have become Pakistan, Had we not been brought together with the label of Hindu, the entire subcontinent would have become Pakistan. The very same men who created Pakistan through their evil design and sowed the seeds of differences among us with their theory of two races- Aryans and Dravidians- unwittingly did us a good turn by calling us Hindu, thereby bringing into being a country called "India. " So do we belong to one religion or we are divided into two different faiths?
The belief that Saivas and Vaisnavas have separate deities and religious works does not represent the truth. Though the present outlook of the two groups suggests that they represent different faiths, the truth will be revealed if we examine their prime criptures. The saints who composed the Tirumurai of the Saivas and the Nalayira-Divyaprabandham of the Vaisnavas never claimed that these works of theirs were the prime religious texts of respective sects. Nor did they regard themselves as founders of any religion. Vaisnavism existed before the Azhvars and so too there was Saivism before the Nayanmars. The original scripture of both sects is constituted by the Vedas. Saivas describe Isvara thus:
Vedamodarangamayinanai
Vedanathan, Vedagitan, aranan kan
Jaya jaya sankara, hara hara sankara !
Source: Voice of Paramacharya – Hindu Dharma.
