2015
A Criticism of नारायणास्त्र blog Along with Answering some FAQs This document shows the lack of - integrity, honesty and truthfulness, in their works and is a one stop guide to warn the unwary readers from becoming prey to their magical tricks and falling in the trench of darkness. It also attempts to answer few FAQs of the readers that they posted to me.
Santosh Kumar Ayalasomayajula The son and devotee of Uma-Maheshwara! 1/26/2015
A Criticism of नारायणास्त्र blog Plus Some FAQs answered
Santosh Kumar Ayalasomayajula
Document Revision History Sl. No.
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Finalized and released the first completed version v1.0 Added “APPEXDIX B” where my responses to the rebuttal to this paper have been documented
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Table of Contents _Toc411447207THE NEED FOR THIS ARTICLE .................................................................................................................................. 5 ANSWERING FAQS (FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS) ....................................................................................................................... 6 DARK SECRETS EXPOSED - ARE नारायणास्त्र BLOG AUTHORS TRUE TO THEIR HEART WHILE POSTING ARTICLES/COMMENTS? ..... 12 1.
HOW GOOD IS THEIR HOSPITALITY? ........................................................................................................................ 12
2.
HOW GOOD IS THEIR INTEGRITY?............................................................................................................................. 13 2.1.
Arjuna’s flowers offered to Krishna get deposited at Shiva’s side .................................................................... 15
2.2.
The incident of Rudra running in front of Arjuna’s Chariot and killing the kauravas .................................. 17
2.3.
He purposely misinterprets Mahabharata and concludes Rudra cannot grant Moksha ............................... 19
2.4.
The deceitful interpretation of the story of Vishnu’s beheading and calling Rudra as actually beheaded . 20
2.5.
Vinayaka in Bhagawad Gita Bhashya is misinterpreted as Ganesha ................................................................ 23
2.6.
Addressing the Purushottama Challenge ............................................................................................................. 24
2.7. Desperately holding Andhra Mahabharatam for evidence against Shiva Sahasranama and failing miserably ................................................................................................................................................................................ 27 APPENDIX A – BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHORS OF नारायणास्त्र BLOG ............................................................................................ 34 1.
Aaryamaa (Dark Warrior / Sri Vaishnava) blowing his own trumpet and revealing his profile name of indiadivine.org . 35
2.
Dark Warrior’s same repeat arguments coming down since 2008 (and may be before also) ............................................... 35
3.
Sri Vaishnava (aka Aaryamaa) getting an advice to become civil and matured by his fellow member ............................... 35
4.
Dark Warrior (Aaryamaa) calling Paramacharya as Bogus ................................................................................................ 36
5.
Dark Warrior (Aaryamaa) calling Paramacharya as Defeated ............................................................................................ 36
APPENDIX B – RESPONSES TO THEIR REBUTTAL OF THIS DOCUMENT ............................................................................................. 38 1.
A Classic Case of Double Standards – If they do it’s justified when someone else did it is wrong! .................................... 38
2.
Their defence against their hospitality issue ........................................................................................................................ 39
3.
Regarding Arjuna’s flowers to Krishna reaching Shiva ...................................................................................................... 40
4.
On the topic of their cunningness of twisting truths related to the story of Rudra helping Arjuna ................................... 40
5.
On Sri Rudram composed by Vyasa (from Drona Parva) ................................................................................................... 41
6.
Cunningness in their response to the ‘Purushottama challenge’ ........................................................................................ 42
7.
Just a clarification regarding Arjuna being referred to as Purushottama ........................................................................... 44
8.
Yajurveda and Purusha ....................................................................................................................................................... 45
9.
Their hatred for Kanchi Paramacharya continues ............................................................................................................... 45
FINAL VERDICT FROM THIS ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................................... 46
T
HE NEED FOR THIS ARTICLE For the past one year I have been receiving couple of questions related to नारायणास्त्र blog - some directly
through blogger comments, some through chats, and some through word of mouths (from people who know me personally). After neglecting for a year, I felt, 'OK, let me answer the most frequently asked questions’. I would still have felt lazy to write this article if it were just to give answers to FAQs that I receive, however a greater necessity has arisen which made me drop off my laziness and that necessity is related to the increasing noise of shiva-dwEshI-s! From the past one year, by the authors of नारायणास्त्र blog, a lot of noise is being made against lord Shiva, and especially against Shiva’s glories from Mahabharata. I ignored them, and was tolerant for various reasons such as – my busy work life, my sister’s marriage, my studies, and other worldly preoccupations. Now also I have better things to focus on instead of cleaning the trash. But in the recent months it is observed that when a learned and respectable Advaitin (Sri Subbu-Ji) has started proving their propaganda as false, their noise has started becoming shriller on the ears. It is only when this Advaitin has started refuting their claims; I had actually spent some time and did a cursory glance at their articles apart from the comments and discussions. I do not read their works in detail because I feel highly allergic towards their typical vaishnavite interpretations and I feel repulsive of their crooked grammar jugglery with which they turn the scriptures upside down. But just by these cursory glances itself it was observed that truths are being twisted and lies are being painted as truths by them. Not everyone has discerning eyes to see their real face through their thick coatings of ‘make-up’; hence their works are misleading the audience. Seeing this as the problem statement and feeling the necessity of giving a resolution my inner-self has persuaded me to peel-off the make-up from the face of the ‘lies’ which are pretending to be ‘truths’! And also unveil some dark secrets of that blog's authors. I thought 'Let me do all these tasks together with answering the FAQs at one shot instead of giving one-on-one replies which would not look organized'. - Hence this document took birth! I still do not see any value add in writing about them or their works, and the current article is also a sheer waste of my time and also I do not want anything related to them to be part of my mainstream articles, hence keeping this article as a static page away from my main articles.
A 1.
NSWERING FAQS (FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS)
Q 1. नारायणास्त्र bloggers call your names many times, why don't you talk about them like what they do?
Well, the above question is the gist of few of the questions I had received couple of times. I had deleted many of those comments since I had never felt a need to answer them; however, since I’m writing this article, and luckily I have recently got a comment which is on similar lines I had preserved this comment to use it here, which is shown below.
ANSWER: I believe in the below quote from ‘Eleanor Roosevelt’ “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt I barely have any time to soil my hands in discussing about individuals. Life is uncertain and I have many better things to focus on. Therefore I usually focus myself on countering wrong philosophies which spread anti-shiva diseases in our Sanatana Vedic society; rather than focussing on people and whatever they keep bitching about me on my back. I do talk sometimes about anti-shiva groups, but I use the generic term ‘vaishnavas’, while refuting their philosophies. But when these two 'Humble’ vaishnavas bitch about me then the readers may decide who falls under which category of "minds" quoted by Eleanor Secondly, on a lighter vein- They are doing marketing of my blog without even getting paid any salary by me. They are my marketing staff, I am not theirs! You, the reader, need to understand one thing that, "hatred" as well as "negative propaganda" attracts greater attention, spreads the news like wild fire, and reaches many eyes within no time as compared to "liking" and "positive propaganda". You won't believe that, these two marketing professionals (who work for free for me), have helped spread my blog's reach to the wider audiences beyond my reach (i.e., in vaishnava communities), where I would have otherwise never been able to spread in such a short time. They link my pages and talk something rubbish with negativity and criticism. Naturally negative review encourages the minds of the vaishnavite-readers to jump to my page and read my article in full. That way this marketing staffs of mine are helping me gain readers, and that too such readers who would read my lengthy essays with patience till the end . My weekly average of blog visitor count usually remains around 100 approximately, where, on an average I get at least 10-15% of audience coming from नारायणास्त्र blog following the advertisements posted by my marketing staff So, why should I work for them? I am their boss and client, not a partner. ;-P
Well, all jokes apart, there is no reason why I should waste my time countering “their” opinions who hold no significance in my life, and their absurd works would never gain any acceptance outside of their vaishnavite circle. Till the time they are within the boundaries of decency and till their works are not violating any of my rights and till their criticism of me is within the limits of my tolerance, I do not see any need to WASTE my precious time and energy on them. Whether you, the reader, would believe or not, bad-mouthing about someone reduces one’s tapas-shakti. Therefore I do not wish to waste my tapas on talking about these individuals who are just the newborn ‘leaves’ of the tree of hatred called ‘shiva-dwesha’, I would rather use my energy in refuting the ‘roots’ of that giant tree apart from analyzing scriptures for my ‘svAdhyAya’ and my spiritual self-development. Therefore let me remain blissful in focusing on philosophies and if they focus on me they would be in reality, wasting their own time and energy [However, as stated in the introduction of this document I am here soiling my hands in a mild criticism of their works in this document. Even if it wastes my tapas, once and for all I have taken that step because their noise against Shiva is increasing day by day. This document should be self-sufficient in explaining the readers why their works are not trust worthy and why they shouldn’t be taken seriously and given more weightage. I cannot go about revealing their dirty tricks every time to the readers as that is not my primary goal of life. Therefore once and for all I have taken this decision of penning down a mild criticism (in the sense that their entire work is worthy of criticism hence taking few of their points for criticism is mild in my view).] 2.
Q2. Why don't you publish comments containing URL of नारायणास्त्र blog's posts?
I don't have a snapshot to show for such a class of comments, but indeed some people had inquired the same. ANSWER: I do not want to get their blog indexed by search engines via my blog. Therefore I do not publish any comment which contains advertisement of their blog URL on my pages. The reason is - My blog ranks higher than theirs in the PR ratings of the search engines; hence I do not wish the search engines to take my blog to be a medium of promoting my opponents’ blog. Even if you observe, in this document throughout I have never used their blog name in English word; everywhere I have mentioned their blog name in Devanagari to avoid that word also getting indexed. Call it selfish? I’m all OK with that! This answer should clarify all doubts why your comment would get deleted if you post any link of their pages in my blog. 3.
Q3. Why don’t you publish some of our comments?
This is a common question coming from the admirers of नारायणास्त्र blog. I don’t have a screenshot to provide as evidence, and I believe it is not required also. In the past, some admirers of नारायणास्त्र blog had posted some rubbish as comments and wanted me to reply to them. When such filth was trashed by me, those kids went ahead weeping and complained to नारायणास्त्र blog author ‘Humble Bhagavata Bandhu’ (HBB) and bitched about me. नारायणास्त्र blog authors responded to them saying censuring comments was unethical on my part and consoled those kids. But not everyone understands that there is a limit for tolerance for anyone, and when it crosses the limit, one would push the delete button to censure the unwanted and irritating comments. If you think नारायणास्त्र blog authors do not censure comments which they think are not making sense ‘to them’, then you are mistaken! They had stopped publishing comments of two persons who debated with them – Sri Abhijit and Adbhutam (Sri Subbu ji – a respected Advaitin) and warned to stop publishing comments from another person who is a liberal Sri Vaishnava viz. Sri Suresh Srinivasamurthy. Those three instances are known to me, but there would surely be many more voices suppressed by them. See below how one of the two Humble Vaishnavas warns him of not publishing, and how the other humble vaishnava brands him as Shaiva in guise of Sri Vaishnava (But the reality is Sri Suresh is a Vishishtadvaitin but with a liberal heart and
open mind for other philosophies and all Gods). But for our friend Aaryamaa whosoever questions his articles is a “Shaiva”
And recently I received information (news) from someone who posted it to me as a comment shown below. The below person has informed me that his comment where he questioned their one article titled “Lord Rama - The Heart of Rishi Svetasvatara” as copied and stolen from another blogger’s article titled “Lord Rudra - The Heart of Rishi Svetasvatara”, was not published (Link of the original article: http://hara-hara-mahadev.blogspot.in/2010/03/lordrudra-heart-of-rishi-svetasvatara.html).
Surprisingly, (to the best of my knowledge) when they had first published that article, the statement “(This article is a response to a shaiva article that claims that the shvetAshvatara upaniShad talks of Shiva's supremacy.)” was not present and later on it was found to be inserted to make a “copy” look a “refutation”, most probably it was done after this user had commented on that. ANSWER:
So, the answer is - every author does the same i.e., to censure comments when he/she feels it is beyond the tolerance. Well I am not finding fault with them anyway, because everyone subscribes to some ideologies and everyone’s tolerance has a limit, and every blog owner has his/her freewill to moderate incoming foreign content. Some people like me reach tolerance limits quickly hence even the first comment gets censured if found absurd; and some people like नारायणास्त्र blog authors have enormous amounts of time to waste and enormous amounts of energy to quarrel and stretch the discussion by posting super-absurd messages in return and then finally at some point they too stop publishing comments any further. Not a big deal, every blogger is same human. Therefore complaining and bitching about someone behind his back shows immaturity only. But I appreciate the tolerance limits of the authors of नारायणास्त्र blog! But fortunately or unfortunately I have a pretty busy life and hence I do not give any room for anyone to engage me in vitanDa-vAda (illogical arguments) and waste my time. Secondly, questions are of three types, viz. 1) Questioning for Testing or for challenging: - People of such types approach as self-declared-Gurus and consider others as good for nothing. They question to test, to attempt to defeat, to show their superiority, to challenge, or even to simply irritate the other person. People of such types are all time-wasting parasites in my opinion and hence questions of all such people EITHER receive a strong response from me which lasts only maximum of one or two replies from me, OR more often, such posts trigger me into pushing the ‘Delete’ button 2) Questioning by pretending to be a learner: - Some people approach as if they have genuine queries and are trying to seek an answer but in reality they have malicious intentions. They initiate discussions like a learner and soon reveal their real face of vampires and start engaging the author in a vitanDa-vAda kind of useless debate. I have enough god-gifted intelligence to smell the reality in each and every thought of the people who try to interact with me. Such comments meet death (deletion) straight away 3) Questioning for learning genuinely: - People of such types approach as a seeker – and for such people naturally anyone would prefer to remain open and I too remain cool and explain them whatever I know. Whatever I do not know, I try to direct them to other right sources. The best example of such a reader of my blog was a lady who is a vaishnavite. She had introduced herself calling herself a ‘staunch Sri Vaishnava’, but the tone of her queries were genuine and the approach was that of a learner / seeker. Both of us had brainstormed on some correlations between Kamakshi, Bhudevi and Sita and I am happy to say that I had no problems interacting with her and it was a decent and mutually benefitting interaction as shown below.
And we left the conversation with a happy note and the intermediate conversation was also cool despite having differences as shown below.
So, the bottom line is - I am the sole decision maker of what would get published and what would not. I am not governed by anyone else's rules. Read the terms and conditions page at the footer of the blog for more details on comments policy and guidelines. The same link is pasted below for quick access. http://mahapashupatastra.blogspot.in/p/licensing-permissions-for-sharing.html
4.
Q4. Was Adi Shankara a Vaishnava as the authors of नारायणास्त्र blog are promoting?
This was verbally asked by a guy who knows me in person, hence can't produce screenshots. However, I am pretty sure that this is the major question in the minds of many readers whosoever have come across the नारायणास्त्र blog. ANSWER: No! Adi Shankara was an Advaitin and hence never did any discrimination. His personal favourite deity was lord Krishna as it is believed by many. However, he has always supported and promoted the concept of Nirguna Brahman alone in his works and he had equally composed many devotional hymns for Shiva, Vishnu, Shakti alike. He was also the Acharya of the dakshinAchara method of srIvidyA upAsana and had installed Sri Chakras in some Shakti temples
as per the legends. The legendary scholar and mystic saint Sri bhaskararAya makhIn who was a Shakta-Advaitin, always held Shankara as his Acharya in Shakta philosophy. But these days these two “humble” bhagavatas are over enthusiastic to convert Adi Shankara into Vaishnavism and christen him as ‘vaishnava’. But their articles which try to prove Shankara as a Vaishnava are very convincing for any reader who is not learned in Advaitic works. I must admit that their reasoning is outwardly very convincing and an unwary reader could easily get into their trap in believing Shankara to be a Vaishnava. My inner-self (antarAtmAn) and my heart had never agreed to those claims. I simply chose to ignore their claims about Shankara being vaishnavite because of two reasons:1) Researching in Advaitic works is not my priority at present: - Which abc-sastry, or xyz-tirtha, mno-ananda said what and interpreted Vyasa’s scriptures in which manner and what “opinions” of theirs they had posed over the standard scriptures of Hinduism – I am simply NOT bothered at all. Similarly, claiming Shankara as a Vaishnava, and deriving other such absurd conclusions based on some third party “scholar’s” opinions do not attract my attention. I stay unmoved by such ramblings. Hence my priority at present is not to disprove such fake theories 2) Shankara’s works are out of scope for my write-ups:- At present, I do not need to refer and study Shankara’s works for my articles and my research works. Advaitic write-ups of Acharyas are out of scope of my research at present. The theme of my works and my research do not have any necessity to study second hand / derivative works of acharyas of any school. Necessity drives my focus, and if the need arises someday, I would dive into the works of Acharyas. At present my interest and focus is in original scriptures viz. Vedas and the works of Veda Vyasa and for that reason I do not focus on anything out of the contour of Hinduism’s primary scriptures A great advaitic scholar viz. Sri V. Subrahmaniam-ji (affectionately called as ‘Subbu-Ji’) who is respected in Advaitic circles for his knowledge on Advaita and Shankara’s works; has responded to the claims of नारायणास्त्र blog authors in a very detailed manner saying that Shankara wasn't a Vaishnavite. So, for the general audience (includes me also) who are not well studied in Advaita, it is better to be a bystander and be a witnesser. Those responses of Subbu-ji can be read in detail from his personal blog https://adbhutam.wordpress.com/ which he keeps regularly updated. Well, “Humble Bhagawata Bandhu”(the owner of नारायणास्त्र blog), hails from a Smartha family and hence if someday his father comes to know about his write-ups which try to prove Shankara as a vaishnava; I am sure uncle would slap him for going against what his family has been practicing and preaching and for his thoughts being against the standard faith of that lineage (So, when we are sure that his own elders would not accept his theories, do we need to break our heads to refute him?). Perhaps for this reason in order to escape the eyes of his parents he always hides behind fake profiles and fake names instead of his real name.
[All the controversial categories of comments have been covered in FAQs. Hence closing this section here]
♣♣♣♣♣ [Criticism of नारायणास्त्र blog begins next]
D
ARK SECRETS EXPOSED - ARE नारायणास्त्र BLOG AUTHORS TRUE TO THEIR HEART WHILE POSTING ARTICLES/COMMENTS?
1. HOW GOOD IS THEIR HOSPITALITY? Whatever be your background of knowledge, whatever be the sampradAya you belong to, even if you belong to Advaita, or even if you are a Vaishnava (a liberal one), if you happen to disagree with the authors of नारायणास्त्र blog, you would be branded as “Shaiva” and would be given a pet name. Subbu-Ji, a well admired and respected person in Advaitin circles, happened to post comments to नारायणास्त्र blog where he disagreed with their pet-theory of calling Shankara as a Vaishnava and Advaita as a Vaishnavite doctrine. To his comment initially he was received with good hospitality by prefixing “Dear” and then “Shri” to his name and then praising his knowledge of Shankara Vedanta and traditions as shown below.
But soon let’s see how the hospitality changed when he disagreed. No “Shri” no “Dear” as prefixes. The people who believed him as well read in Shankara Vedanta and hailing from Shankara mutts and tradition has become a “prachhanna Shaiva” because he disagrees with their opinion.
And then they initiated the Advaitin into Veerashaivism without taking any fee. The same Subbu whom HBB called as “well-read in Shankara bhashyas” and hailing from Shankara’s tradition; makes him a Veerashaiva and says he doesn’t have any knowledge of Advaita. (Actually the name “veerashaiva” was given by Aaryamaa who has no respect for individuals who are older than him. HBB has used what his friend coined. But anyway both are birds of same feather hence are the co-authors)
Another person Sri Suresh Srinivasamurthy who hails from Vishishtadvaita tradition of Ramanuja but is a liberal thinker and open minded person; when he posed some questions to these bloggers and despite he being very mild and courteous in behaviour he is also warned and branded as a Shaiva. See below how one of the two Humble vaishnavas warned him of not publishing his questions anymore, and how the other humble vaishnava branded him as ‘Shaiva’. For our friend Aaryamaa whosoever questions his articles is a “Shaiva”
Conclusion: - You be a ‘yes men’ and nod your head in agreement with whatever they write, you would be treated with respect. You raise questions around their beliefs / their write-ups; you would be branded as a Shaiva.
2. HOW GOOD IS THEIR INTEGRITY? In this section I intend to show how those bloggers use dirty tricks like - deceitful interpretations, purposeful twisting of actual meanings, hiding of facts and promoting lies as truths. I wanted to use the pronouns like ‘authors’, ‘they’ etc., throughout this analysis to keep myself away from ‘name calling’ and singling-out someone (which I do not like to do). I often in my articles use generic terms like ‘vaishnavas’, and also call ‘wicked vaishnavas’ (in irritation) etc., to refer to the entire family of ‘shiva-hating-devotees-of-vishnu’ and do not specifically mean ‘Sri Vaishnavas / Madhwas/ISKCONites/Gaudiyas’ but that term ‘vaishnavas’ in my works is a superset which includes people from all these cults whosoever does ‘shiva-ninda’. However, in this section I am helpless. I cannot call them with pronouns because most of the unforgivable acts of deception were done by Aaryamaa in his articles. Had I been generic in my tone I would have made HBB also guilty of cunningness when he is not actually responsible for everything what is written in his blog. Therefore, let the readers understand that name-calling is not what I intend to do, but during this exercise of exposing the dirty-tactics played by that blog, in many places it has become unavoidable to refer to the author who has written that specific material which is under criticism. Secondly, I also wish the readers to understand that I am a straight forward person and do not know how to use ‘diplomatic speech’ and ‘politically correct expressions’; in short, my pen doesn’t know how to sound sweet if it is countering Shiva-ninda - My pen intends to
refute the substance, not the names. Therefore readers are requested to focus on the matter primarily and just remember the names what I cite so that they could remain ALERT in future while reading their articles and not get misguided by their deceit. These authors (especially the “Aaryamaa”) are NOT to be trusted blindly without scrutiny. My personal opinion is that the owner of that blog viz. HBB is trustworthy to some extent when compared to his co-author Aaryama, because HBB’s works do not make any immediate negative impact since he does nothing extra than just collecting huge references from other scholars’ opinions which suit “his” ideas and simply concludes his article claiming his opinions are true because so many scholars (whom he quoted) supported his views. HBB’s style reminds me of an old joke which is tailored and presented below to match HBB’s style. How he writes is, he would cite some unknown/known scholar and say as follows: He says, “Sri K.V. Ramachandran Iyer said ‘Change cannot be given to you everytime. You must bring the change!” And the readers simply get carried away thinking “Sri K.V. Ramachandran Iyer” as some great writer or a management guru explaining “Change Management” theory of Management philosophy. But only when you come to know that “Sri K.V. Ramachandran Iyer” is a “Bus Conductor” you would understand the “actual context” of his statement correctly and would understand the “real meaning” of “Change” in his statement. HBB does this every time. He quotes known and unknown persons out of context (including Shankara). He takes names of some sastry, some tirtha, some ananda, or some swami and says they have said something which matches his thoughts and hence his theory is validated, therefore you, the reader-folk are asked to accept his theory as the opinion of Sanatana Dharma! Who among the common reader-folk has time and energy to search in the vast ocean of books to actually find out under what context, in what sense that so-and-so person has said whatever has been quoted? Even the great personalities like Shankara are not spared. He quotes Shankara’s Bhagawad Gita Bhashya and misinterprets Shankara’s statements and derives conclusions like “Rudra, Aditya etc., are not worthy of worship (for Moksha)”, and “Vinayaka means Ganesha who is unfit to be worshiped” etc...Only those who have read all these works of these so-and-so-scholars, whom he names in his works, would understand whether he is correct or is misrepresenting their views. However, his style does not bring ‘instant destruction’ because his words would be accepted readily only within his vaishnavite circles, others would surely get time to digest and then accept or reject such views outright. There is always a room for recovery in his theories. And still there are many people (I’m one of them) who find ‘such so-and-so-person-said’ talks boring and give a damn to such opinions; since, after all, be it some ananda/tirtha/goswami/whatever, all their opinions are mere opinions; for majority of Hindu scholars/researchers/debaters/logicians; what finally matters is quotes of original scriptures and not opinions of people. Therefore his works do not do instant impact! But, Aaryamaa (his co-author) quotes direct references from scriptures which outwardly may look like a scholarly work and a genuine opinion of scriptures; but in reality he uses unfair, stealth and cunning approaches and drives scriptures towards the meaning which he considers as true, and the irony is that the unwary readers cannot make out how he has twisted the meanings of scriptures. They cannot make out how they are stealthily being led under the butcher’s knife. Therefore, Aaryamaa’s works are instant disasters to Hinduism. Readers are cautioned to think twice before accepting his conclusions blindly. The threat is – if people would accept his theories, they would end up accepting falsehood as truth, if someone chooses to refute his conclusions, one would be ending up wasting time refuting those things which are all false, just painted as truths. Finally, that person is somewhat wise who chooses to ignore his opinions. I would even dare to declare openly that there could be truths in what HBB says, but whatever Aaryamaa says is all false! Let us see how he stealthily turns facts upside down! The article on “interpolations” in Mahabharata has been written by Aaryamaa. In the below image see how the readers are requested to invest their precious trust on this author’s integrity. He says that he would do his “best” in quoting verses correctly. But the reality is – he did his “best” in misquoting the verses, he used the trust of the readerfolk to stealthily misguide them towards his fake conclusions. Let’s see the “quality of integrity” his work possesses.
2.1. Arjuna’s flowers offered to Krishna get deposited at Shiva’s side Here is how the author has discussed this topic.
From the above shown excerpts let’s draw the salient points numbered over there: A. Point no. 1, is the verse from Sanskrit version of Vyasa Mahabharata B. Points nos. 2 and 3 refer to a work “tiruvAymozhi (2-8-6)” which was authored by “nammAzhvAr” – a Sri Vaishnavite saint C. Point no. 4 talks about a COMMENTARY named “arumpadavurai” written on “tiruvAymozhi” D. Point no. 5 cites a Sanskrit verse found in the commentary ‘arumpadavurai’ E. Point no. 6 says that this author has searched BORI’s critical edition and also Kumbhakonam editions for the verse stated in point no. 4 and failed to locate F. Point no. 7 asks the reader to note that “villiputtUr AzhvAr” (another SriVaishnavite saint), who rendered the Mahabharata in Tamil as “villibhAratam”, has also recorded that incident as per the authentic story narrated by Vaishnava AzhvArs and AcAryas G. Point no. 8 concludes that in those Tamil works of those AzhvArs they have not mentioned anything about Sata-Rudriya hymn which is mentioned in Vyasa Mahabharata Let’s analyze this now... Analysis
In Point no. 1 he quotes the Sanskrit Vyasa Mahabharata verse and then cleverly tries to take the discussion around the Tamil saint’s works in points 2 and 3. Further he takes us deep inside the Tamil-spider-web and talks about a “Commentary” OVER the Tamilian’s work of “tiruvAymozhi” and takes the Sanskrit verse present in that “commentary”. Then he compares this third level work with the first level work i.e., he compares this Sanskrit verse taken from someone’s commentary and tries to search that verse word by word in Vyasa’s Sanskrit Mahabharata (which is like comparing an apple with an orange) in point no. 6 and says that he failed to locate the Sanskrit words/expressions of a commentator’s mouth in the voice of Veda Vyasa And thus he trickily tries to condition our brain to accept what he wants us to accept i.e., to accept it as an interpolation
Is he so innocent that he cannot understand the simple fact that if some (original) author writes in a book (say Text1) as, “Rama killed Ravana and rescued Sita”, and some (other) commentator writes a commentary (say Text-2) on that work and explains it in his own words as “Raghava destroyed Dashaanana and rescued Maithili from his clutches”, and then if you try to take this second verse from Text-2 and search for the same in Text-1, who on this Earth wouldn’t call you a ‘fool’?
Then in Point no. 8 he tries to use the strength of his previous analysis to conclude that since Sata-Rudriya is not mentioned in Tamil works hence it should be an interpolation in Vyasa’s Mahabharata. And then he shoots a blind statement in air saying Saivites of Tamilnadu accept that work as- “In addition, Villibharatam has wide acceptance as the authentic Tamil rendering of Mahabharata even by Saivites in Tamil Nadu”. He doesn’t mention which Saiva works of Tamilians referred / said they accept this version of Mahabharata by Tamil anti-shiva Acharyas. But anyway, nobody cares what a handful group of a state of India accepts / rejects. The Mahabharata which is universally accepted is Sanskrit Vyasa Mahabharata and not any abridged Tamil/Telugu works. Period! Moreover, all Vaishnavite saints were always big time haters of lord Shiva. This trend is still continuing till date. Today also we have idiots like H.H. Chinna Jeeyar Swami who chooses not to enter a Shiva temple when invited for a discourse in a premise where Shiva’s temple also exists (alongwith Vishnu, Lakshmi, Ganesha temples) and orders his followers to erect a curtain so that Shiva temple’s view is not visible to him while he is preaching his discourse sitting into a Vishnu/Lakshmi temple in that area. Therefore none of the vaishnavite saints and their works can be trusted! Their works and their opinions cannot be a yardstick to compare and judge Vyasa’s works. So, their conclusion of Point-8 is not at all counted and not at all acceptable. His conclusion: - “We have searched the above mentioned verse both in the BORI Critical Edition, as well as in the Kumbakonam edition. Both editions do not have this verse, even in the "appendix of additional verses not in the critical edition". The Reality: - Search for the following verses in BORI and Kumbhakonam editions, and you would surely find them in both of these versions of Mahabharata. I am able to locate very easily, why can’t they? "tato 'rjunaḥ prītamanā vavande vṛṣabhadhvajam | dadarśotphulla nayanaḥ samastaṃ tejasāṃ vidhim || "taṃ copahāraṃ svakṛtaṃ naiśaṃ naityakam ātmanaḥ | dadarśa tryambakābhyāśe vāsudeva niveditam ||" (Mahabharata Drona Parva 7:57:60-61) Conclusion: - Clearly this author has tried his “best” to twist truths, misquote scriptures and misguide the readers whom he has asked to invest their trust in him.
2.2. The incident of Rudra running in front of Arjuna’s Chariot and killing the kauravas Let’s carefully look at the below two extracts from the same article. These two extracts are related to an incident from Mahabharata where Bhagawan Rudra actually kills Arjuna’s enemies and Vyasa himself informs about this to Arjuna and also recites another version of Sata-Rudriya hymn (not the Yajurveda one) to Arjuna which was composed by Vyasa himself. The below snap is from the main article
The below snap is from the “Comments” section of another article where someone had asked a question related to the above extract and the response has been provided by Aaryamaa (who used to post under the name “Anonymous” for quite some time and later switched on to another fake name “Aaryamaa”). Therefore the below reply is by Aaryamaa to the one who posted a question.
Salient features to be noted from above extracts: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Point no. A references a chapter from SHANTI PARVA Point no. B says that in that chapter Arjuna enquires Krishna about who that effulgent being was who was killing Arjuna’s enemies on his behalf Point no. C says that to ARJUNA’S QUESTION Krishna gave a REPLY as given there Point no. D says that Arjuna asked Krishna about the deity who was running in front of him and Krishna explains to Arjuna that it was Shiva and then this Aaryamaa says what is the need for Arjuna to ask the same question to Vyasa when Krishna has already told him?
Let’s analyze his hidden intentions now... Analysis: Point A has a question from Arjuna to Krishna where Arjuna is said to have “enquired” him about the being that killed kauravas on Arjuna’s behalf. That blog’s author has claimed that question from Arjuna to Krishna is from the Shanti Parva. Then in Points B and C that author has claimed that in REPLY to Arjuna’s enquiry Krishna explains that it was Rudra who helped Arjuna. But this is not at all true. What he has said is all a cock and bull story. This “inquiry” has been cooked up by the blog’s author himself. In that chapter while narrating the greatness of Rudra Krishna just “additionally” informs Arjuna about Rudra killing on behalf of Arjuna. There is no “question” posted by Arjuna in that matter. Krishna’s response is as follows: “That Being whom, at the time of all thy battles, thou beheldest stalking in thy van, know, O son of Kunti, is no other than Rudra, that god of gods, otherwise called by the name of Kaparddin”. [Refer to that chapter from Mahabharata here - http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m12/m12c042.htm] It is evident from that chapter that the above statement was not stated in response to any “question” of Arjuna. It was just added information from the side of Krishna. And it is clear that Aaryamaa has interpolated a question in that chapter for his readers in his blog The most important thing comes from Point D of his response. In Point D NOTE CAREFULLY the underlined words in the snapshot. He cleverly OMITS the Parva name (as though he isn’t aware of) and uses the words “Arjuna already asked Krishna elsewhere” about who that being was who killed kauravas on his behalf and then raises a question on another chapter from Drona parva (where Arjuna had actually raised that question to Vyasa) and concludes saying “(When Krishna has already answered Arjuna) what was the need for him to ask Vyasa AGAIN?” [Note that he uses
the word “again”]. Thereby for the unwary readers he creates a doubt by his tricks and magic and makes them believe that the chapter where Vyasa had narrated the great Sata-Rudriya hymn to Arjuna is an interpolation! [Here is the original chapter where Arjuna had indeed asked Vyasa (alone) about Rudra and Vyasa sang Rudra’s glories and also authored another version of Sata-Rudriya hymn (not same as Yajurveda one) - http://www.sacredtexts.com/hin/m07/m07198.htm] People who are blind followers of this author, who have invested their trust in his “integrity”, would have believed his words because who would usually sit and scrutinize such lengthy posts of his? Moreover, to scrutinize his writings and to know whether he is speaking truths or spreading lies the foremost requirement is that the reader MUST be learned in the subject matter used in that context; which, unfortunately the general readers are not! People would not have realized the fact that the story of Arjuna and Krishna’s discussion comes in Shanti Parva and the story of Arjuna and Vyasa’s conversation occurs in Drona Parva; and please note that Drona Parva comes before Shanti parva. Therefore if at all he wants to call one of those chapters as an interpolation then it should be the Shanti Parva one (i.e., the discussion between Arjuna and Krishna) and not the Drona Parva one which is has become a thorn in his eyes. His conclusion: - His analysis converges at the conclusion that the Drona Parva chapter where Vyasa reveals to Arjuna about Rudra’s greatness and authors (and sings) a hymn called Sata-Rudriya in the glory of Mahadeva; is an interpolation. The Reality and Conclusion: - The Drona Parva chapter is by all means more authentic than the Shanti Parva chapter, hence is authoritative, but Aaryamaa cunningly tried to twist facts and hide the Parva names from the readers and tried to misguide them to believe his theory of interpolation. But do not think that he would be humble enough to accept his wrong doings. If you’re thinking he would correct himself and accept that his integrity wasn’t pure and accept that he had tried to misguide the readers, you’ve not understood him. What he would do is - because he considers himself the father of Panini incarnated in the current era and because he holds a Master degree in ‘forceful grammar jugglery’; he would grammatically interpret “Shanti Parva” as occurring before “Drona Parva” of Mahabharata and prove he is correct.
2.3. He purposely misinterprets Mahabharata and concludes Rudra cannot grant Moksha In the book named “vana parva” of Mahabharata, there is a story of Arjuna doing penance to please Shiva,. Shiva appears and grants him his own terrible weapon named ‘Pasupatastra’. In that episode, while asking Arjuna to seek a boon, Shiva says, “O hero, express the desire that dwelleth in thy heart. I will grant it. Except immortality alone, tell me as to the desire that is in thy heart.” To those words of Shiva this author has concluded that Shiva cannot grant Moksha as shown in below snapshot.
Analysis: This is another incident which exposes all his cunningness and his anti-shiva feelings. This proves again the extent of hatred he holds in his heart for Mahadeva! He has happily misinterpreted Shiva’s words as his inability but in reality it is otherwise! Shiva grants Moksha but the need of the hour for Arjuna to seek from Shiva was not immortality, but it was to seek the most terrible weapon. Therefore that was most probably just an instruction from Shiva to persuade Arjuna in asking material boon (of a weapon) instead of spiritual boon (of moksha). There is nothing to be taken seriously of those words of Shiva. But this Shiva-Dweshi always holds malicious intentions towards Maheshwara, hence he concluded in that way. I wonder how could this author become so blind that he could not see the same Mahabharata saying Shiva can grant Moksha and that too in the direct words of Krishna to Yudhishthira? Here are the relevant verses from Sauptika Parva of Mahabharata where Krishna declares Mahadeva as the Parabrahman who creates, sustains, and annihilates the worlds and also grants Moksha. And for the kind information of the readers, this section is not an interpolation; it is an authentic chapter in Mahabharata! 6 [vāsudeva] nūnaṃ sa deva denānām īśvareśvaram avyayam jagāma śaraṇaṃ drauṇir ekas tenāvadhīd bahūn 7 prasanno hi mahādevo dadyād amaratām api vīryaṃ ca giriśo dadyād yenendram api śātayet 8 vedāhaṃ hi mahādevaṃ tattvena bharatarṣabha yāni cāsya purāṇāni karmāṇi vividhāny uta 9 ādir eṣa hi bhūtānāṃ madhyam antaś ca bhārata viceṣṭate jagac cedaṃ sarvam asyaiva karmaṇā | (MBH 10:17:6-9) “The holy one said, "Verily, Drona's son had sought the aid of that highest of all the gods, the eternal Mahadeva. It was for this that he succeeded in slaying, single-handed, so large a number of warriors. If Mahadeva be gratified, he can bestow even immortality. Girisha can give such valour as will succeed in checking Indra himself. I know Mahadeva truly, O bull of Bharata's race! I know also his various acts of old. He, O Bharata, is the beginning, the middle, and the end of all creatures. This entire universe acts and moves through his energy”. His conclusion:- He says, “Shiva cannot grant moksha” The Reality: - Shiva is the Parabrahman and he grants Moksha. The Conclusion: - Aaryamaa tried his best once again to take advantage of the trust of the readers and misguide them to believe that Shiva himself has said that he cannot grant Moksha hence he is inferior to Vishnu.
2.4. The deceitful interpretation of the story of Vishnu’s beheading and calling Rudra as actually beheaded Some anonymous reader commented on their blog and sought some clarification regarding the story of Vishnu’s head being cut-off as per yajurveda and Devi bhagawata Purana as shown below. And in reply the ‘Aaryamaa” quotes Sayana as the authority and gives his interpretation. Secondly he says “Actually it was Rudra who got beheaded” (What nonsense!). His brain cannot forget “Rudra” even for a second, whatever he writes, he pulls Rudra in. Actually he is the greatest devotee of Rudra (but via shatru-bhAva). See below snapshot.
Further that enquirer asks about explaining how Rudra is said to be beheaded – then Aaryamaa replies as shown below.
Analysis: In the Satapatha brahmana (14:1:1:1 - 14:1:1:11) of Yajurveda there occurs a narrative which says the deities Agni, Indra, Soma, Makha, Vishnu, and the Visve Devâh, except the two Asvins, performed a sacrificial session. They
decided that whosoever finishes that sacrifice first would be called the greatest among them. Vishnu did that and he couldn’t control the happiness of his glory. He leaned on his own bow and was immersed in the happiness of his victory. Gods decided otherwise, they sent the ants to cut the bow string and gave them the boon that ants would always get food and water even in desert. Those ants gnawed the bowstring and the jerk of that stretched string was so sharp that it cut Vishnu’s head who was standing leaning on the bow. And then gods felt shocked and wept saying “Our hero has fallen” and then they restored Vishnu’s head with that of a Horse with the help of Ashvini Kumaras. This story in no way intends to say that Vishnu is no more alive, but it is a story of how Vishnu’s Hayagriva incarnation took place. The equine headed form of Vishnu viz. Hayagriva is like the Dakshinamurty form of Shiva in terms of wisdom. Hayagriva is the god who killed a demon by the name Hayashirsha (and sometimes also referred to as Hayagriva as well), who had stolen the Vedas and hidden them in the ocean. Vishnu’s this Hayagriva form manifested this way and he restored the Vedas back because he is the wisdom god (as like as Dakshinamurty). Hayagriva killing that demon Hayashirsha is mentioned in Mahabharata Santi Parva. Vishnu getting beheaded and gaining a Horse head and becoming Hayagriva is clearly depicted in Devi Bhagawata Purana in the same way as what has been said in Satapatha Brahmana. Therefore Satapata Brahmana’s this story cannot be given any “other interpretations” other than the tale of Hayagriva manifestation. Hayagriva is also mentioned in Brahmanda Purana and it is he who instructed and initiated Agastya into Sri Vidya Upasana and narrated the grand narrative called as Lalitopakhyana to him The deceit of these haters-of-Shiva comes to the foreground because of the following reasons: They deny the same story which is narrated in Devi Bhagawata Purana as manifestation of Hayagriva avatara and give interpretations saying “Vishnu is not the deity, it is Yajamana etc..” citing Sayana as though these people take Sayana’s words as true all the time But would he accept the same Sayana who commented on Rig Verse (RV 9.96:5) where RV says that Soma created Vishnu? Sayana also says in his Bhashyas for god Soma that Soma means “Sa+Uma = Shiva”. Combining both these we get the conclusion that Shiva generated Vishnu. But these vaishnavas do not accept Sayana at such places. They do selective acceptance only when someone’s commentaries match their pettheories. Therefore Aaryamaa bringing Sayana into that Satapata Brahmana is just a gimmick to beat around the bush and escape the story of Devi bhagawatam Next, there is no story available (within my knowledge) from brahmanas which talk about Rudra’s head being beheaded. Aaryamaa says Acharyas of Sri Ramanuja tradition have quoted a story of Rudra’s head being cut off. None of such Acharyas can be trusted blindly because all of them were anti-Shiva. Even today the china-jeeyar displays instances of anti-shiva feelings, then how can one believe the olden days’ acharyas of their lineage, when everything comes to them as tradition? Alright! For a second let’s accept there exists such a story of Rudra’s beheading in some imaginary-brahmanabook, but then why can’t Aaryamaa interpret that story as a metaphor of some yajna or yAjamAna like what he did in Vishnu’s case? Why he should take that story literally there? Rudra is also called as Yajna in Upanishads and we all know that without his presence Yajnas cannot succeed, Daksha yajna is a classic example. This is clearly a case of pure cunningness, where he cites an imaginary story calling it occurs in brahmanas and quoted by Sri vaishnava acharyas where he accepts Rudra’s head as cut, but clearly negates the Satapatha Brahmana and Devi Bhagawata which clearly say this is not any metaphor and Vishnu indeed got beheaded and that’s how he manifested himself as hayagriva. Clear example of double standards by Aaryamaa! His Conclusion: - Vishnu didn’t get beheaded; it was yajamana and not the god Vishnu. Thereby indicating that Devi Bhagawatam’s Hayagriva incarnation story is bogus The reality:- This story is true as attested by Devi bhaagwatam and the god whose head was beheaded (for the purpose of manifesting lord Hayagriva) was Vishnu himself. Hayagriva as an incarnation of Vishnu is mentioned in Mahabharata, and Brahmanda Purana also.
The Conclusion: - Therefore in no way Vishnu’s Hayagriva incident can be called a bogus one. These Godheads take many unimaginable paths to do their pastimes. While the beheading of Vishnu cannot be literally taken as the “death of Vishnu” and we cannot say that he exists no more; yet these sinful vaishnavas try to twist these stories and want to give some bogus interpretations. They have even stooped to such a low level that they say, “It was not Vishnu who got beheaded, it was actually Rudra”. What nonsense! INFERENCE It is evident from this analysis that Aaryamaa’s theories should NEVER be accepted readily. He is a true Vaishnava in the sense that the same practice of twisting the truths (which all vaishnava scholars had been doing since ages) has come down to him as tradition and he is upholding his sampradAya very well!
2.5. Vinayaka in Bhagawad Gita Bhashya is misinterpreted as Ganesha ‘Humble Bhagavata Bandhu’ (HBB) misinterprets the word ‘vinAyakAs’ in Gita Bhashya of Shankara as lord Vinayaka (Ganesha) and concludes that worshiping him is not going to give Moksha.
Therefore he ultimately concludes that the shanmata-s (which includes Ganapatya as one) is not leading to Moksha hence only vaishnavism is the only path to Moksha.
Analysis: At present it is not my priority hence delaying some refutation-articles, but someday I would write an article and explain how the shanmatha-s are equally leading to Moksha and are equally important. His theory that vaishnavism is alone the supreme path would be refuted in light of the six paths! But need some time due to attending some other priorities. Well, at present I would simply refute the incorrect understanding on ‘vinAyakA-s’. Shankara, while writing his Gita commentary was probably unaware of the future day vaishnavas and their poor level knowledge of scriptures. Otherwise he would have written within braces “()” saying “vinAyakA doesn’t mean ganesha”. It is such a sorry state today that these Vaishnavas are not thoroughly learned in their favourite Vaishnava Puranas and Mahabharata! (Or is it that HBB has also tried to cunningly twist the meaning as how Aaryamaa does? No..No.. I shouldn’t conclude about HBB like that with just one example...)
Vinayaka-s are some ganas (bhuta ganas or Rudra ganas or Grahas) which are present in the army of lord veerabhadra. Padma Purana clearly says the same as follows gaṇakōtiḥ samādśtāgrahāvaināyakāstathā | bhūtaprētāpiśāchāśchadakśayajnavināśinē || (Padma Purana 01:05:67) Mahabharata’s Shanti Parva has a Shiva Sahasranama stuti by Daksha. This chapter has a mention of vinAyakas. Although it is not found in BORI critical edition and is considered as an interpolation yet, the point I want to make here is not about authenticity but rather about the translation. Kisari Mohan Ganguly (the translator) has translated this chapter into English and he doesn’t make any erroneous statement of equating Vinayakas to Ganesha. He correctly translates that word as “Plural” (vinAyakA-s) and not singular “vinAyaka”. KMG translation reads, “Neither Rakshasas, nor Pisachas, nor ghosts, nor Vinayakas, create disturbances in his house where this hymn is recited”. (MBH Shanti parva Section CCLXXXV) (Refer it from here:- http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m12/m12b112.htm) These Vinayaka (or Vinayakas for plural) are Grahas or Ganas and they participated in Daksha Yagya vidhvansa along with Veerabhadra when Sati immolated herself. There is no question of Vinayaka (Ganesha) Being referred there since Ganesha manifested after Sati came back as Parvati. Therefore it is evident that Shankara in his Gita Bhashya never meant to downplay lord Ganesha who is hailed as the Supreme Being in Ganapati Atharvashirsha Upanishad! His Conclusion: - Shankara called Ganesha as not worthy of worship for Moksha in his Gita Bhashya hence Shankara cannot be a supporter of Shanmatha including Ganapatyam The reality: - The vinAyakA-s are ghostly beings and not lord Ganesha hence his conclusion is refuted! The Conclusion: - gANapatya is a valid path for self realization. [I’ll write a detailed article someday which would explain in very detail how each of the six paths is valid paths for liberation].
2.6. Addressing the Purushottama Challenge The author HBB made a very bold statement in his homepage article as shown below. He has even underlined and then highlighted the challenge in Yellow for grabbing quick attention. His guts are appreciable since he has so confidently proclaimed that if this challenge is refuted he would consider all his arguments supporting vaishnavism as refuted. Although his such a proclamation is over-confidence-coming-from-the-mouth-of-a-person-with-halfbaked-knowledge (otherwise he wouldn’t have uttered such words), yet, his boldness is very much worthy of appreciation. I appreciate his courage here, since no one would usually have guts to make such statements so easily. Hence let me first offer my regards before I proceed with addressing his challenge. – This is for him - Claps! Claps! Claps! I salute his boldness!
Analysis:
Here is the requirements breakup
He has asked to quote an itihasa (OR) Purana (OR) Kavya to support Shiva as purushottama He has not said anything like – ‘quote only from (so called) satiwika puranas’. Implies his statement is open to all Puranas. Therefore he is not expected to back off from his words now.
All these various sub requirements have been bound by the OR clause in his statement, which means if any one of the criteria is satisfied, then entire requirement gets satisfied. But I am large hearted enough to quote more than one reference here. Let’s see the evidences now. Quoted three references from Purana Quoted two references from Itihasa Quoted one reference from Upanishad Quoted one reference from Yajurveda Quoted one reference from Rig Veda Finally I’ve quoted one reference from Itihasa to say that ‘Purushottama’ word is not a copyright of Vishnu alone and is applied to humans also
Purana as the evidence – Shiva Purana! In the beginning of Rudra Samhita the very opening prayer by Veda Vyasa to lord Shiva has a great revelation – here Vyasa clearly calls lord Shiva as the ‘Purushottama’. vandē śivaṁ taṁ prakrutēranādĩ praśāntamēkaṁ puruśôttamaṁ hi svamāyayā krutsnamidaṁ hi śruṣṭvā nabhôvadantarbahirāsthitau yaḥ |" (Shiva Purana Rudra Samhita 1:02) "I pay my obeisances to that lord Shiva who is beyond prakriti, who is peaceful, who is the only lord who is called Purushottama; who by his own power of Maya creates this entire universe and like the sky pervades within and without the universe". Even the same fact has been stated within Shiva Purana in various other places as follows. Shiva is called as Paraḥ-Pumān (a synonym of purushottama) in Chapter 6 of Rudra Samhita as follows. Parahpuman/Parama-purusha etc., are all the synonyms of the word – ‘purushottama’. paraḥ pumānīśvarassa śivaśśambhuranīśvaraḥ śīrṣē mandākinīdhārī bhālacandrastrilôcanaḥ .25 pancavaktraḥ prasannātmā daśabāhustriśūladhruka karpūragaurasusitô bhasmôddhūlitavigrahaḥ |" (Shiva Purana Rudra Samhita 6:25-26) “He, the lord (Sadashiva), is the one who is termed as paramapurusha (Supreme Being), Ishvara, Shiva, Shambhu, and Maheshwara. He carries Ganga in his hair locks, wears moon as an ornament on his head, he has five faces each having three eyes, he has ten hands, and holds Trident and is ever-smiling. He has a fair hue as like as camphor, and his body remains smeared with ashes”. Shiva Purana Rudra Samhita Sati Khanda Chapter 27 calls Lord Shiva as “Purana Purusha” which means ancient Supreme Being which is again a synonym of ‘Purushottama’ because other than the UttamaPurusha no one can be ancient Supreme Being. yēnaiva sarvāṇyapi mangalāni bhavati śaṁsanti mahāvipaścitaḥ sōsau na druṣṭôtrapumāna purāṇô vruṣadhvajô nīlagalaḥ parēśaḥ |”28 (Shiva Purana 2:1:27:28)
“[Dadhichi Says:] The high souled sages who believe by whom everything becomes auspicious, that 'purana purusha (ancient Supreme Being), who has bull for his sign on flag, that blue-throted lord's presence is not being seen here".
ItihAsa as the evidence – Mahabharata! Arjuna extols Shiva with a prayer in Kairata Parva where he calls Shiva by the following words. “pradhānapuruṣātītaṁ paraṁ sūkṣmataraṁ haram |” (MBH 03:XXXIX) “Thou art beyond the matter and spirit (Jiva), you art the highest, thou art the subtlest, O withdrawer!” Shiva Sahasranama chapter from Anushasana Parva (which is an authentic chapter beyond doubt) has the following words by Bhishma. “prakṛtīnā̃ paratvēna puruṣasya ca yaḥ paraḥ |” (MBH 13:XIV) “He transcends both Prakriti and Purusha (means Jiva here)” That being who transcends matter and spirit (Jiva) is the Brahman and is the original Purusha also called as Purushottama.
Shruti (Upanishad) as the evidence – Maitreya Upanishad! “sarvadA samarUpo.asmi shAnto.asmi puruShottamaH | eva.n svAnubhavo yasya so.ahamasmi na sa.nshayaH ||” (Maitreya Upanishad III-24) “[Shiva himself says] I am always equanimous, I am quiescence, (I’m) the greatest being (Purushottama); one who has his own experience thus is without doubt myself. He who listens to this (experience) even once (with supreme faith) becomes himself (i.e. becomes merged into) Brahman”.
Shruti (Vedas) as the evidence – Yajurveda (Taittiriya Aranyaka) and Rig Veda (Kaushitaki Brahmana)! Here in the below verses we see that Yajurveda has called Rudra as the Veda-Purusha and Rig Veda hails Rudra as having a thousand headed and thousand footed figure. The name ‘purusha’ and his attributes of having a thousand heads (omniscient) and thousand feet (omnipotent) are exactly what Purusha-Suktam declares. Therefore here Purusha is the name of the highest being (Brahman) and not of the Jiva (who also is called as Purusha usually). The highest Purusha is termed as Purushottama and hence in the opinion of Veda it is Bhagawan Rudra who is the Purushottama. “puruśō vai rudraḥ |” (Taittirya Aranyaka 10:24:1) “Rudra is the (veda) purusha” “tata.udatiṣṭhat.sahasra.akṣaḥ.sahasra.pāt|” (Kaushitaki Brahmana 6:1:13) “There (Rudra) rose again (and stood having assumed a) thousand heads and a thousand feet”
In fact the word “Purushottama” is NOT a copyright of Vishnu alone In Vana Parva of Mahabharata, in the Kairata Parva where Arjuna gets Pashupatastra from Mahadeva, there Maheshwara calls Arjuna as ‘Purushottama’ as follows.
prītimānasmi tē pārtha bhavān satyaparākramaḥ | gr̥hāṇa varamasmantaḥ kānxitaṁ puruṣottama || (MBH 3:39:6) "Hey Partha! Your valor is very genuine, therefore I am very much pleased on you, O Purushottama! Seek whatever boon you desire to have from me". Vaishnavas cannot try to “interpret” this reference saying “nara and Narayana are both Vishnu’s forms hence Arjuna is also Vishnu”...and such blah blah blah... This logic cannot be valid because, everyone worships Krishna but no one worships Arjuna even if he is one of the two ancient divine rishis. Here the word ‘purushottama’ may not literally refer to the arjuna being the ‘Supreme Being’ but it is evidence that this word can even be colloquially used for “best of all men” who was Arjuna. When that word has been used to refer to a human being (Arjuna) why can’t it be used for Mahadeva who is the Supreme Brahman?
His Conclusion: - No Purana or any scripture can ever have Purushottama word ascribed to lord Shiva The reality: - We do have references in scriptures where Shiva is called directly as ‘purushottama’ and indirectly with synonyms such as ‘paramapuman’, ‘purusha’, ‘sahasrakshi sahasrapat’ etc. The Conclusion: - HBB’s challenge has been completely addressed with references from itihasa (which is itself a Kavya where Vyasa is the Kavi), Purana, Vedas and Upanishads. Therefore his opinion stands refuted. Now, it’s time to see how strong his integrity is, and how far he keeps his promise that he had made with highlighted text in his article. It’s time for him to close his shop (read नारायणास्त्र blog) forever...!
2.7. Desperately holding Andhra Mahabharatam for evidence against Shiva Sahasranama and failing miserably These authors of नारायणास्त्र blog have always been in the lookout for some evidence, however weak that evidence may be, against Shiva Sahasranama of Anushasana parva of Mahabharata. After writing a detailed article without proofs from scriptures, and purely based on their deceitful opinions they tried to search for evidences in others’ works finally. Analysis:Then came this request to another Sri vaishnava by name V Murali Krishna (signs as VM) to find out if Andhra Mahabharatam contains (especially) the Shiva Sahasranama or not as shown below.
And while they could get the information, the following article by Subbu-Ji addressed their objections saying that Madhwa vidwans accept Kumbhakonam Edition of Mahabharata as authority and since it contains Shiva Sahasranama that is authentic. ( Link: https://adbhutam.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/authenticity-of-the-shiva-sahasra-nama-in-the-mahabharata/) During that discussion HBB spoke truth as shown below. He has revealed that some Sri vaishnava upanyasakAras have stated in public that Shiva Sahasranama is genuine. He further says that however not every Sri Vaishnava accepts it as shown below.
Nobody cares what “Sri vaishnavas” accept and what they reject. If they say “cow’s milk is black”, it is their colourblindness, all others are not affected by their beliefs! But the above revelation of truth by HBB seemingly became alarming to Aaryamaa and he felt insecurity and immediately responded as though correcting HBB’s words as shown below. He “assured” us and said that such statements by Vaishnava upanyasakAras are for “political correctness because the audience is secular”
This is an absurd statement and is against the true spirit of integrity towards one’s deity and one’s devotion! Take the following examples for understanding why that is impractical and absurd argument: If I happen to give a discourse of Isha-Upanisahd in America or Britain; seeing the country as Christian country would I say Isha-Upanishad talks about “Isha-Messiah” or would I be truthful to the heart of the Upanishad and talk about the isha (ishwara)? Note that there is a Christian missionary group which has already translated Isha Upanishad saying that it glories Yeshu-Messiah (jesus) hence named as “isha”. Because such an attempt already exists from Christians, would I be afraid to talk truth and speak against such things OR would I preach supporting Jesus just because the audience and the country is Christian in majority? Even in India, going by the logic of Aaryamaa, if a preacher deviates from his cherished philosophy just because audience is secular, how could he be true to his tradition? One needs to be bold to speak out what he believes as true and not try to satisfy the audience. Why would that preacher try to gain attention of secular audience? Vaishnavas are only welcomed by their vaishnavite circles. Nobody outside their circles cares about “their” opinions anyway. Then why would he want to gain the votes of non-vaishnavite-secular audience? How long can he gain such votes? What would he lose if the secular audience rejects his preachings (which anyway everyone does with them always)? Aaryamaa says “What constitutes proof is what the guru parampara of the traditions think..” So, what happened to the guru parampara of such upanyasakAras who forsake their “guru parampara” of “calling shiva sahasranama bogus” for the greed of gaining secular followers as their fans? What happened to their integrity? It is crystal clear that HBB has spoken the truth and Aaryamaa has tried to cover it up so that his wickedness towards Shiva’s supremacy remains unthreatened. Thereafter the Andhra Mahabharatam became a great weapon for them upon which they banked their faith when their fan and follower helped them with a Google books link as shown below.
That Google books link is a book authored by some Swami ji and it is “his” opinion that BORI’s acceptance of Shiva Sahasranama of Anushasana Parva may be questioned. He quotes R.N. Dandekar and says that he felt strange to see Andhra mahabharatam not containing Shiva Sahasranama. See below screenshot.
Based on these they think that they could call Shiva Sahasranama of Anusasana Parva as interpolation. But it is not true for the following reasons. Andhrama Mahabharatam is just a highly abridged version and it doesn’t contain even Sanat-Sujatiya Gita. So, if someone wants to call Shiva Sahasranama as unauthentic they need to call Sanat-Sujatiya also as unauthentic. Probably later that R.N. Dandekar might have learnt this fact, hence their team at BORI never called Shiva Sahasranama of Anusasana Parva as interpolation Andhra Mahabharatam contains Bhagawad Gita in very short narrative. May be just around 12 pages of content. Would one call the rest of the Gita as originally interpolated by Shankara who first wrote a commentary by interpolating it? Of course yes, since we have mouth, we have a tongue and tongue has no bones, we can move it whatever way we may like, isn’t it? Seeing the googlebooks link HBB expresses his gratitude to their fan and follower and calls it to be helpful.
Then Subbu-Ji had penned down a very detailed and a well researched article on Andhra Mahabharatam and proved that Andhra Mahabharatam cannot be banked upon as a valid pramana to counter the Sanskrit Vyasa Mahabharata. His research paper is available for download from the following link. (Link: https://adbhutam.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/the-andhra-maha-bharatamu-a-short-study/)
Their friend and devoted follower of नारायणास्त्र blog after going through the detailed article of Subbu-Ji on Andhra Mahabharatam thinks that it is very convincing and states the same opinion to नारायणास्त्र bloggers calling “Subbu-ji’s analysis strike at the very heart of their hypothesis”. Refer below comment.
Then seeing these bloggers’ favourite Andhra Mahabharatam failing miserably in being an evidence against Shiva Sahasranama this Aaryamaa in desperation talks bitterly with their own fan and follower and uses personal remarks against Subbu-ji instead of addressing/accepting the Andhra mahabharatam issue. He beats about the bush and tries to avoid being seen as a loser. See below conversation.
From the above comment it is clear that Now Andhra Mahabharatam is no longer seen by these bloggers as a cherished “evidence” against Shiva Sahasranama. Aaryamaa coins a term “kannada Mahabharata” and shoots off the following statement as if they NEVER banked upon Andhra Mahabharatam as a strong evidence. He says - “be it Andhra mahAbhArata, kannada mahAbhArata, etc - is helpful, but as a supplementary proof which bolsters our opinion”. Instead of accepting defeat and considering Shiva Sahasranama as authentic he switches over to “selfglorification” boasting as – “Anybody who has seen our commentaries would not be bringing up this nonsense as a "refutation" at all. Just because someone writes something, it doesn't immediately become a refutation”. He perhaps doesn’t know that anybody who carefully examines Aaryamaa’s commentaries and his works would easily denounce him and his interpretations. As seen and analyzed above he has taken every opportunity to twist truths, cook up tales, hide facts, paint lies as truths and didn’t leave any stone unturned to hypnotize the readers to accept what he says as the only correct thing. Anything which goes against his pet-theories becomes “nonsense” and “asinine” for him (these two adjectives are his favourite words, we can see him using these words often ) Since Subbu-ji chose to refute his false theories he has become “irredeemable” and what Subbu-ji writes has all become “vitanDa vAda” for him
Finally his phrase “Time and again, we have reteirated that we have covered all bases”; I don’t know what was in his mind when he wrote that statement but we have clearly seen from above analysis that he has spoken a true statement here. He has time and again “covered all bases” using deceit, lies and twisting scriptural meanings. This is the only place where he has uttered a truth! Even after seeing refutation of their Andhra Mahabharatam they have not accepted that Shiva Sahasranama as authentic. This is clearly a testimony that they are extremists filled with hatred for Shiva and purposely want to reject Shiva’s superiority related sections as unauthentic… whether by hook or by crook!
Further Subbu-Ji has done a marvellous research on the topic and wrote another paper titled “The ‘Bhāratamanjari’ of Kshemendra” where he has shown that Kshemendra (c. 990 – c. 1070 CE) wrote a Mahabharata and in his version Shiva Sahasranama and Upamanyuakhyna exists. (Link: https://adbhutam.wordpress.com/2015/01/18/the-bharatamanjari-of-kshemendra/) Surprisingly, it was found that on this topic, the biggest fan of नारायणास्त्र blog himself got convinced that Shiva Sahasranama episode of Mahabharata’s Anusasana Parva is authentic and accepted it as shown below. (Link: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/science-religion-philosophy/I1ByH__alnw)
Their Conclusion: - Shiva sahasranama from Anushasana Parva of Mahabharata is an interpolation The reality: - It has been in sufficient detail analyzed and proved that Shiva Sahasranama is an authentic one beyond doubt. The Conclusion: - There is no need to reinvent the wheel. BORI (Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute) has already produced a critical edition of Mahabharata and they have accepted Shiva Sahasranama of Anusasana Parva as authentic episode. However, their research claims that Shiva Sahasranama by Daksha in Shanti Parva is an interpolation. Krishna getting a boon of son from Shiva and doing Tapasya for Shiva’s grace is very much referenced in Mahabharata in other parvas also such as, Shanti parva and the same has been mentioned in Harivamsa Parva as well. Upamanyu giving Krishna Shiva Deeksha is also found in other Puranas as well during his Tapasya. Therefore it is illogical to try to say these entire sequences are interpolations. Anyway, for the vaishnavas, everything which
glorified Shiva have always been interpolations, this is not the first time these two humble vaishnavas have popped up into existence from nowhere. Their seniors had also possessed that cunning and deceitful nature in their mind. Nothing is novel in the approach of these small fries. Apart from BORI’s conclusion the second biggest proof of Shiva Sahasranama being authentic is that the devoted follower and fan of नारायणास्त्र blog named “Lakshminarayana K” has himself accepted Shiva Sahasranama as authentic.
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PPENDIX A – BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHORS OF नारायणास्त्र BLOG
The authors of नारायणास्त्र blog are like computer viruses and/or like underworld mafia agents who come in variants of names. Humble Bhagavata Bandhu (Originally R|_|_|_|_|_|_| S|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|) He named himself “BhagavataFan” in www.hindudharmaforums.com He writes under the fake name “Sriram Sharma” in Advaita related lists o His Spiritual background: - He hails from a smartha background and from the family of Advaitins but he has been corrupted by the bad company of shiva-hating-vaishnavite(s). We won’t discuss much about him here. Aaryamaa (Originally Srinivasan Ramanujan) : He named himself as “Dark Warrior” in www.indiadivine.org forums He named himself as “Sri Vaishnava” in www.hindudharmaforums.com He appeared as “Unknown” on my blog
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He wrote many comments naming himself as “Anonymous” in नारायणास्त्र blog
He currently writes under another name as “Aaryamaa” in नारायणास्त्र blog
His Spiritual background: -He is a Sri Vaishnava and a follower of Vishishtadvaita. He has been extremely against lord Shiva in every forum where he participated. In all the forums he has received warnings from the Moderators (One who know him in those forums know about these very well. I can’t waste my time in locating dates when these happened). This itself is enough to understand that nobody subscribes to his opinions, no one accepts his views and nobody likes him. Way back in 2008 also he had the same arguments to make against Rudra as Rudra is born from brahma hence he cannot be Supreme Brahman He doesn’t understand that one who manifests through some agent need not be inferior to that agent. For instance, Rama was born to Dasharatha, that doesn’t make us worship Dasaratha. We all worship Rama as God. Similarly, Krishna was born to vasudeva, do we worship vasudeva and devaki or Krishna? His logic of Rudra being inferior to Brahma and hence in-turn inferior to Vishnu is absurd, and utter nonsense! Satapatha Brahmana says Rudra is born of sin hence he is a sinful Jiva This has been successfully refuted in (Section 3 of my article http://mahapashupatastra.blogspot.in/2013/04/the-unborn-rudra-of-svetaswatara.html). But as we have already seen in this paper, he would never accept corrections and would keep on forcing his stupid beliefs on everyone. Therefore he is incorrigible! And many more…. He has a database of points from scriptures malevolently tailored by him to make them appear as anti-shiva references which he keeps repeating everywhere. It is 2015 now and He has not changed The quotes what he used to blabber way back in 2008, the same he quotes even today. If you read his articles on नारायणास्त्र blog, it would be clear that all his
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articles can be condensed down to not more than 2-3 points viz. (1) Rudra has a birth hence he is a Jiva. (2) Rudra is sinful hence cannot be Paramatman (3) Rudra has Vishnu as his antaryAmi hence all his glories belong to his indweller His boastful / self-glorifying attitude Even in 2008 he used to consider his fellow debators as inferior to him. And the same case continues till date. He even glorifies his Vedantic knowledge and his grammatical skills (which we know from his blog) and looks down upon the other person. His self-glorification can be read from below screenshots He has no respect for Advaitin Acharyas such as Paramacharya of Kanchi See below screenshots
1. Aaryamaa (Dark Warrior / Sri Vaishnava) blowing his own trumpet and revealing his profile name of indiadivine.org
(Link: http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?p=86655)
2. Dark Warrior’s same repeat arguments coming down since 2008 (and may be before also)
(Link: http://www.indiadivine.org/content/topic/1312253-is-lord-shiva-a-demi-god/page-8 …and further till 21 pages you would find him in his full form)
3. Sri Vaishnava (aka Aaryamaa) getting an advice to become civil and matured by his fellow member
(Link: http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?p=86655)
4. Dark Warrior (Aaryamaa) calling Paramacharya as Bogus
(Link: http://www.indiadivine.org/content/topic/1312083-the-avadhuta-gita-of-dattatreya/page-2)
5. Dark Warrior (Aaryamaa) calling Paramacharya as Defeated
(Link: http://www.indiadivine.org/content/topic/1313464-listening-to-the-holy-name-from-the-lips-of-mayavadis/)
And internet is flooded with many more of his absurdities…If you have time and energy to waste on researching on this person you would understand that apart from his Pets (read his-like-minded-shiva-hating-vaishnavas) he has no track record of being liked by anyone. If you agree with his bogus conclusions, you would be in his good books; if you question, he would call your name in every article that he creates newly. He has no originality in his articles. All he does is to re-package the old stuff into a new wrapper. All his arguments are copy-pastes (with additions and elaborations by him though) from Vaishnavaite websites such as www.srivaishnavan.com/ans_iswara.html
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PPENDIX B – RESPONSES TO THEIR REBUTTAL OF THIS DOCUMENT
These two Humble Vaishnavas have come up with a response to this paper in the name of ‘rebuttal’ at the below shown link.
Any non-vaishnavite can easily understand how they are trying to cover their loopholes (which had been exposed in this current document) by leveraging their clever (cunning) tactics. Only their pets (shiva-bashing-vishnu-devotees) would find praiseworthy content in their so called ‘rebuttal’ and keep singing ‘wah …wah...” for whatever bullshit they call it as ‘response’ or ‘rebuttal’. I would have not cared a straw for their response, but out of their tons of lines of absurdity on that page, I could find few of their lines of speech worthy of highlighting here because this again builds a clear case of evidence to show the neutral readers how trickily they twist their words.
1. A Classic Case of Double Standards – If they do it’s justified when someone else did it is wrong! The below extract is from their “Answer” to “Accusation no. 2” on their page.
ANSWER: This is exactly what I wanted to show. The person, who posted a comment to me mocking about the ‘thievery’ of these bloggers from the article of my friend’s blog; had actually mocked at these humble bloggers’ difference in words and actions,. They can take inspiration from any Shaiva article to build their work on top of it branding it as a “refutation”, but when the same was done by “Acharya Srikantha”, these humble-vaishnavas have branded him as a “thief”. What a double standard! It reminds me of a Bollywood song where a line goes something like – “…who kare to kehte hain ki raas-leela hai | main karun to saala character dheela hai |…” It fits this case perfectly. Acharya Srikantha had built his Shiva-Vishishtadwaita philosophy on top of ‘bOdhAyana vritti’ and the resultant thesis was definitely same in principles as what was Ramanuja’s ‘Vaishnava- Vishishtadwaita’ philosophy because even Ramanuja’s work was built on top of ‘bodhAyana vritti’. Therefore it was natural for both these works to look similar and hence there was no need to call ‘Srikantha’ as “Ramanuja mata chora” meaning, “thief who stole Ramanuja’s philosophy”. Isn’t it? In fact Srauta-saiva-siddhanta school and few others consider Srikantha as born
before Ramanuja. But Ramanuja followers hold the opposite opinion. Who is correct, and who should be called whose thief is out of scope for now. But these humble-vaishnavas always readily accept what their wicked-minded vaishnavite acharyas (of any school) talk. Hence they have accepted readily the meaningless statement by “Purushottama and Giridhara” of Vallabhacharya’s school. See below snapshot for details.
Conclusion: This is clear that these humble vaishnavas use every opportunity to ridicule others but when it comes to them, they try to conveniently escape being caught by others and try to justify their actions by giving some naïve reasoning. Whether this is a case of double standards or not can be easily judged by the audience. I need not force feed anyone.
2. Their defence against their hospitality issue This is related to the criticism of the way these bloggers treat people who debate with them. Please refer to section 2 of page-12 above for details. In response to that criticism, trying to defend their wrong they have come up with the “theory of change” as shown below:
And then they give some reasons for their disagreement and then say:
ANSWER: Well, they say “the tradition of Vedanta allows enquiry”, but surprisingly they don’t seem to know “how the Vedantis respond to enquiries”. We all have seen serious debates in various forums; even these two humble-bhagawatas were once upon a time, active participants in various forums like HDF (hindudharmaforums) to name one. So there is nothing new that we need to teach them. They very well know the decorum that is followed in debates especially with elders. Even I have seen debates between learned Advaitins in Advaita related forums, but despite their disagreements their way of addressing each other never undergo any “change” contrary to what these humble-friends of mine believe!
Even in serious disagreements people in all such elite and civilized forums are seen to begin their message as “Dear Sri -Ji” and close their message as “With Regards” (Or) “Warm Regards” etc., and only the “body” of the message contains disagreements. They do not call them with ‘pet names’ whatsoever be the level of frustration and disagreements. The basic rules of debates are:a. Disagreements and disputes in debates should be in substance and not in name/form. b. Attack the message, not the messenger Our beloved friends the two ‘humble bhagavatas’ did not follow these rules and when that was criticised, instead of taking criticism as an ‘area of improvement’, they have concluded saying, “…Things change!...”. (On a lighter note After seeing this, which new scholar would ever try to write to them in order to get a ‘pet name’?)
3. Regarding Arjuna’s flowers to Krishna reaching Shiva Just quoting the essence from their response below:
ANSWER These two beloved friends of mine give too much of importance to their sectarian Acharyas whom non-vaishnavites don’t even find worth taking into consideration. Who cares what a vaishnavite Acharya wrote in his works? Every non-vaishnavite Hindu knows that vaishnavite acharyas were always clever and cunning when dealing with “lord Shiva” related areas (of course I love their pure Vishnu/Lakshmi related works of devotion, like the devotional hymns of Vedanta Desika etc.). Not even in dreams a non-vaishnavite Hindu would ever trust their writings. So, this Acharya’s work is not a standard to judge Vyasa’s Mahabharata. Their argument can only look convincing to another Vaishnava alone. Evidence dismissed outright as bogus! They should get some better reasoning to prove their point. Case closed! Thanks! (Sorry to sound rude and close this section abruptly. But this section doesn’t deserve more typing from my hands)
4. On the topic of their cunningness of twisting truths related to the story of Rudra helping Arjuna They have the response as shown below.
ANSWER: There is nothing to respond even from my side, because it is crystal clear how they tried to do the followinga. b. c.
Inserted a Question from Arjuna to Krishna when none of the Mahabharata versions have such a question from Arjuna to Krishna Created a scene as if Krishna responded to Arjuna’s inquiry when the truth was Krishna just gave those details as an “additional” information while describing Rudra’s glories They knew that Santi Parva incident comes later than Drona Parva one, but still tried to misguide their readers by saying “when Krishna had already told that to Arjuna elsewehere what was the need for Arjuna to ask Drona again?” As if nobody would notice their twisting of facts.
When their lies have been exposed, naturally, now they don’t have anything to cover their misdeeds, hence they “feel” they don’t need to waste their breath. Here also had they remained silent at this point, I would have skipped commenting on this part but again as due to habit they try to divert the attention of their readers from the context (because if they dig deeper into the context and think more, they would see the misdeed of these authors) by saying: “Furthermore, in that same chapter, Krishna tells Arjuna all the glories of Mahadeva – that he is the lord of devas, the husband of Uma, very great, but Krishna also adds – “He is born of my (Krishna’s) wrath”. So, all that greatness still makes Rudra a jivA and inferior to Krishna, to whom he owes that greatness. Seems like our shaiva friend failed to point out that just like we highlighted in the article how Shaivas skip those words!” This is totally irrelevant and an off-topic altogether. The topic was not at all related to whether Krishna gave birth to Rudra or who between the two is superior. Therefore bringing the topic of Krishna saying from his wrath Rudra manifests and saying their ‘Shaiva friend’ (i.e, me) failed to point it out is totally irrelevant. Anyone who would have gone through that chapter (whose link I had already given in this document) would know that story. Bringing unnecessarily that part of the story is only to divert the readers’ attention from their black-deed towards me by creating a scene. The only relevant portion what was criticised in this document was their wishfully crafted story of Arjuna getting that information (of Rudra helping Arjuna in his battle) from Krishna first and Vyasa second hence calling Drona parva’s incident is interpolation. This is no way by any human error of theirs; this is seriously a carefully planned act of deception which is evident to all. No more talks on this. Period!
5. On Sri Rudram composed by Vyasa (from Drona Parva) They have the following thing to say:
ANSWER I do not wish to break their heart but the fact is NOBODY outside of their “shiva-hating-vaishnavite” circle would even care a straw for their “the true” commentary on Sri Rudram. Nothing more exists to discuss on this section even from my side. The case is crystal clear to everyone that Sri Rudram of Mahabharata (which is a Vyasa’s composition) is an authentic masterpiece from his pen and all sects of Hinduism accept that chapter as authentic. Even BORI’s critical edition of Mahabharata has not rejected that chapter. So, no more repeat arguments from my side also.
6. Cunningness in their response to the ‘Purushottama challenge’ Here is a snapshot of their rejection of my answer to their Purushottama challenge.
ANSWER Nothing needs to be said as it is self-evident how easily they backed off from their words. But in any case let me explain it out. They say I didn’t understand their challenge. Here is what the relevant portion of the challenge says: “But they stand exposed when they are asked to quote any itihAsa/purANa statement or kavi or kAvya or nikanDu in history that assigns the name Purushottama to Siva” I had clearly broken down the requirement in this document above and enumerated all the sub clauses. It had clearly been depicted that all the requirements were bound by OR clause and not by AND clause. Any educated person who would have studied till the higher secondary school would understand the concepts of “Logic” and any person who would have studied computer programming fundamentals or even one with electronics background (not necessarily be an Engineer but even if someone works in any Electronics repair shop) would easily understand the GATES viz. OR-gate, AND-gate, NOR-gate, XOR-gate etc. Whatever be the background of education, even a person with the knowledge of simple and basic-English would understand the meaning of “OR” clauses.
The statement “itihAsa / purANa” is bound by OR clause (symbol = /) and then it is appended with “kavi”, “kAvya”, “nikandu” beads in OR clause. Therefore there is NO ROOM for them to justify any necessity of inclusion of “kavi”, “kAvya” etc… to the first clause of “itihAsa / purANa” because that would become AND clause in that case. Hope the logic gates concept here is clear to the readers! Since they had been defeated in their challenge, not able to withstand that shock they are trying to spin some hidden terms and conditions. Secondly, they say, “It is ridiculous to think that according to Sri Ramanuja, vedArthAvalokana is possible with tAmasa purANa-s!” Nobody outside of their tradition cares what Ramanuja considers as authentic and what as ridiculous. Acharya Shankara who came much before Ramanuja had used references from Linga Purana etc., Shaiva Puranas in his Bhahsyas. That means for him all Puranas were worthy of acceptance. So, later on if Ramanuja or subsequent Acharyas have (out of malice) condemned Shaiva Puranas as Tamasik then it is clear that it was because of their insecurity towards Vishnu’s supremacy and other than that there was no other valid reason. Even Mahabharata while talking about the greatness of that epic, says that for a devotee of Vishnu by reading the Mahabharata s/he gains the same merit what someone else gains by reading the “eighteen puranas”. It doesn’t talk about only (so called) satwikapuranas of Vishnu. “aṣhṭādaśapurāṇānāṃ śravaṇādyatphalaṃ bhavet. Tatphalaṃ samavāpnoti vaiṣhṇavo nātra saṃśayaḥ |” (MBH 18:06:97 – Kumbhakonam edition) “One devoted to Vishnu acquires (through this) that merit which is acquired by listening to the eighteen Puranas. There is no doubt in this”. Therefore it is crystal clear that these humble-authors are trying to escape from being seen as defeated and nothing else. Their change in their words where they now say “…we meant sAttwika purANa-s” is as like as challenging someone to show Vishnu or Shiva’s stories in Shakespeare’s novels. Earlier they had not even the slightest clue that Shiva Purana would address Shiva as ‘Purushottama’, hence owing to their over-confidence they generalized their challenge as “purana” without categorically narrowing down to Satwika-puranas only. Now this bolt from me has brought them to their senses out of their dreamy fairy land. Hence the change in words now! They fear that if they accept that their challenge was properly addressed, they would need to shut their blog altogether. Funny! It means they have not understood me and my nature properly yet. They haven’t understood that I am not a coward to take advantage of their stupidly (boldly) declared oath (of promising to consider their works as defeated if this Purushottama challenge was addressed) and be jubilant seeing them silent. Had they gracefully acknowledged their defeat in this challenge, truly speaking, I would have made them free of their own promise and would have asked them to forget what they had promised and continue with their write-ups. With this incident my trust on “Humble Bhagavata Bandhu” has broken. All these days I had a soft-corner for HBB because he used to be a man of principles. He used to duly acknowledge and accept corrections. I would cite a classic incident to show how glorious his principles used to be once upon a time. Once for one of my verse he searched in Kurma Purana and concluded that Kurma Purana doesn’t contain that verse and said Bhaskararaya had probably quoted it from his own interpolated version. I pointed him the exact chapter and verse no. from the same website of Kurma Purana what he had mentioned in his page, and he duly acknowledged that finding and did a “strikethrough” of his incorrect conclusion and appended the acknowledgement as shown in below snapshot.
He could have easily edited and removed his old words and inserted the new statement, nobody would have noticed about this change; but he didn’t do that. He used ‘strike-through’ for his incorrect statement and retained it. That made me respect him (silently) and that is the reason in this current criticism paper, (if one would have noticed) I had been softer to those sections where I was handling portions related to him. But Alas! This cunningness displayed against accepting the Purushottama challenge as properly addressed, makes me a bit shocked seeing this kind of transformation in him. Really, “ku-samgati” (bad company) truly brings down anyone from their elevated pedestal to the ground and he too is not an exception after shaking hands with his coauthor. Anyway, the world would see whether their challenge was properly answered by me or not. This kind of cunning denial of acceptance of defeat is nothing new to me. Long back in orkut.com also I had experienced the vaishnavites (mostly from ISKCON and Ramanandi sampradaya) not accepting even when their objections were duly addressed and they used to come back with same repeated arguments. This style exists in every drop of the blood of vaishnavas. This is nothing new but I was surprised only because I had not expected that vaishnava-bug to have bitten HBB also.
7. Just a clarification regarding Arjuna being referred to as Purushottama These authors have expressed a doubt on the verse that I had cited in the section where I originally responded to the Purushottama challenge.
ANSWER Nothing to counter them here - Just wanted to clarify where I got that verse from, so that both the parties and the audience, all three, remain clear on the sources. I had taken that verse which calls Arjuna as ‘Purushottama” in place of “nararshabha” from the Gita Press version of Mahabharata.
Therefore that verse may kindly be taken as a pATha-bhEda (alternate reading) of the text and kindly not considered as my invention. Thank you in advance!
8. Yajurveda and Purusha They point me to their analysis of Purusha of Yajurveda
ANSWER Thanks to them, but I am happy staying away from their analysis. Let them enjoy their analysis; I have no interest in their “scholarly” interpretations.
9. Their hatred for Kanchi Paramacharya continues
ANSWER: Well, I used to have a wrong impression that only Aaryamaa was anti-Paramacharya but in the same article, in the comments section HBB has posted some comments against that sage of Kanchi, this is again strange to find an erstwhile “smartha” (i.e., HBB) speaking against that Acharya whom the entire India salutes. Who cares what these two humble-authors think of that giant pillar of Hinduism? What people know is evidences of Paramacharya being esteemed by everyone. Here is a video showing how a Jeer saint (vishishtadvaitic Acharya) was graced by Paramacharya and how he felt honoured. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH_4Y79Qcs4 Anyway, their allegations on Paramacharya have been found to be properly refuted in the following article. https://adbhutam.wordpress.com/2015/02/10/double-standards-of-some-vaishnavas/
[Final Conclusion follows in next page]
F
INAL VERDICT FROM THIS ANALYSIS
One can easily draw the following conclusions from this paper. 1. They lack integrity – Evident from multiple instances that has been shown in this paper that they have resorted to low level malpractices to undermine Shiva and uplift Vishnu 2. Their works are not authoritative – Their works are not based on the true meanings of the scriptures. They deny scriptures holding Shiva as supreme even though those portions come from genuine chapters of Mahabharata and remain in sync with Vedas 3. They do not accept corrections despite proven defeated – Evident from the Andhra Mahabharatam episode that their devoted follower has accepted Shiva Sahasranama as authentic but these bloggers have not accepted that. No worries! The world can easily judge whose position is right! 4. They follow ‘My way or the high way’ philosophy – As evident from above paper, if you agree to what they say, you would be in their good books. If you disagree and question, they would brand you as ‘Shaiva’ (irrespective of what your tradition in reality is), and may optionally give you a pet name also. 5. They have no acceptance outside their circles – They have no track record of being accepted by any nonvaishnava or truly-unbiased-researcher. They have been warned by Moderators, and advised by fellow members to be civil. This applies to Aaryamaa more 6. They back out of their words when defeated – This is clearly evident from the way they responded to the answer given to their Purushottama challenge. Now, the best thing is to ignore such people and leave them to their prArabdha (destiny). 7. Debating with them is useless and waste of time – This is the biggest conclusion we should draw here.
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[In the service of the reader-folk, an attempt to unveil the true face of नारायणास्त्र bloggers and to reveal their false understanding which they paint as truths and sell to the readers]
|| sarvaṁ śrī umāmahēśvara parabrahmārpṇam astu ||
