Dear Sri Mani, I think you walked into the realm of logic and evidence here. As I see it there are two ways to approach such issues. One is to believe in what has been said and discredit the issue only upon the supply of incontrovertible evidence; the other is to disbelieve what has been said until incontrovertible evidence is supplied to prove the issue. It appears that you have chosen the latter patth. Nothing wrong with that except that you appear to be trying to challenge the former method without reasonable basis (notwithstanding your request for evidence, I am basing my assessment of your stand, on your statement "what hearsay is worth"). I will explain why I think your stand is unreasonable. I can see your viewpoint that independent sets of documents can be accepted as validation of an event. However, the lack of such "evidence" does not constitute denial of the fact. Furthermore even the existence of independent and timely works cannot be 100% proof as there can and will be challenges on the validity of the text (such as add-ons and tamperings). So, it really comes down to your starting value system. If you chose disbelief as the starting point then you are forced to question everything. Surely, even statements such as Vedas being sabdha pramanams are unacceptable under this system as the evidence can be construed as being from a biased party - or to be more correct, there is no proof that the evidence itself is untouched and unbiased. The only time I see that such issues need to be challenged are when they appear contradictory to other facts/stories within the same belief system or if they are used as evidence in denouncing other philosphies or people. The bigger problem I see is in the selective acceptance of evidences and frankly I have been no less guilty than any other in that matter. The bottom line is how does it all fit in together. We know that Sri Anandazhvar was a great disciple of Sri Ramanujar. We know that he had phenomenal respect for his teacher. Is it likely that he built a sannidhi for his acharya - absolutely. Is it possible that he did not and someone else who had great respect for him added that into his legend - yes it is. But do we have to doubt that he actually did - no factual reason to doubt it, in the absence of contrary evidence. adiyEn madhurakavi dAsan TCA Venkatesan
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