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swami ALavanthAr – kATTumannAr koyil
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27-12-2008
 
 
SrI:SrimathE SaThakOpAya namaHSrImathE rAmAnujAya namaHSrImathE varavaramunayE namaH
Sthothra Prasthana: The religious system of Sthothra
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 yadpadAmbhOruha dhyAna vidhvasthASEsha kalmasha:vasthuthAmupayAthOham yAmunEyam namAmi tham I bow down to the lotus feet of yAmuna, by contemplating on his lotus feet all my blemishes havebeen completely removed and I have become an entity
Dr. A. Sreekanth, Srirangam
 
(The core idea of this article is taken from a Hindi article Sthothra prasthanam, appeared in1977 November issue of Ananthasandesam, by Sri U. Ve vidyA bhUshaNam thirunAngUr  prathivAdi bhayangaram aNNangarAcharya swami.)
The Origin of Sthothra
Poetry is a powerful means of communication embellished with rhetoric and figures of speech. It is highly delectable. Sanskrit being an apt medium to translate the ideas intoexpressions due to the versatility, flexibility and grand vocabulary; the sthothra lore evolved anddeveloped in Sanskrit. It was Yamunacharya who started the entire system of sthotras invishishtadwaitha sampradayam. Yamunacharya, prior to becoming a yathi, sends a message tohis opponent, AkkiyAzhvAn, starting with
navAyam kavayasthu kEvalam
– We are not only
 
poets. The usage of “we” here is attributive of all the past and forth coming generations of pooravacharyas. How come alavanthar could predict it,
kavi: krAntha darSI 
:, a kavi can foresee.Akin to the statement of alavanthar, we can see all our poorvacharyas were poets also. One candoubt whether Sri Ramanuja was a poet or not, “
gadya: kavinAm nikasham vadanthi
” goes aSanskrit saying, Prose is the touch stone of poets, only a person well versed as a poet can indulgein writing prose. Sri Ramanuja’s extempore elaboration on Saranagathi through three gadyasbear ample testimony to his status as a kavi. We can see that prose works in sankrit itself arerare; kadambari and dasakumara charitha are examples.The need of composing sthrothras were felt by Swami ALavanthAr, to depict the divineexperiences and counsels of AzhvArs, in Sanskrit- which was then a language of scholars. Hewas a trend setter in composing sthothras. All succeeding acharyas used poetry as a goodmedium of expression. Many sthothras found their place in praise of nammazhvar, likeparankusAShtakam a collection from various authors, parankusa pancha vimsathi of koyilkanthadai vadhula desikacharya and nakshathra malika of jeeyar nayanar. Each of these sthothrafind their exalted places in nithyanusandhanam. For every srivaishnava, the knowledge of poorva/uthara dinacharya is a must as he has to chant them before having his every day meal.
PrasthAna- The system
 
The word prasthAna means pravESam or anvayippathu, meaning ‘a way to attain’, ‘asystem’, ‘purport’ ‘being linked’ or ‘associated with’. In the three vedic religions, Srimathbhagavad githa, upanishads, and brahma suthra are collectively known as prasthAna thraya. Byhis works, SrIbhAshya, gIthA bhAshya, vEdArtha sangraha, VEdAntha deepa, and vEdAnthaSara, Sri Ramanuja did reassert the prasthAna thraya and gave a new life to UpanishadprasthAna. When it comes to our visishtAdvaitha sampradayam, we come across the term
 prasthAna chathushTaya
– or the Four fold system. What are these four?
brahma sUthra prasthAnam, gIthA prasthAnam, divya prabandha prasthAnam and rahasya prasthAnam
.Rahasya means esoteric topics which were kept extremely secret as the knowledge of them leadsto moksham. Even though, Upanishads are the root for all knowledge, Upanishad prasthAna wasincluded into brahmasuthra prasthAnam itself, because of the fact that Upanishads forms partand parcel of the pravruthi vicharam in brahma mImAmsA- the enquiry to Brahman.
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