Dear Bhagavatas, Thank you for your replies. Let me try to address certain things and I mean no offence to our acharyas and esteemed members. 1. Vedic texts & Sriram's post: Sriram beautifully summarized the central issue albeit with a minor mistake - that the vedas talk about a "nameless or formless" supreme being. Not necessarily and not always. That is a tangential issue which we can ignore. The central point is, from vedic texts, we cannot objectively examine the contents and conclude that "Vishnu/Narayana is the supreme". We need to append Vaishnava tantras, azhwar poems and other sectarian puranas to make that claim. As Sriram pointed out, if that is not the case, every Vedic scholar from Sayana to Bhatta bhaskara to Kapardi swami to Mahidhara would have reached the same conclusion. This is ignoring western indologists (accused of a hidden agenda?!). 2. Scientists/Azhwar analogy: This is a weak analogy. Einstein's theory of relativity or photoelectricity may be 'complex' for 'lay persons', not intutively making sense or even worse contrary to common sense. However, the physicists are unanimous on what the theory is about, what it explains, and what are its limitations (if any). We cannot make an analogy of theory of relativity & Vedic texts and scientists & azhwars. Vedic scholars haven't come to a unanimous conclusion that 'Narayana is supreme'. 3. Validity of itihasas & puranas: If we allow puranas as a supplementary source of pramANa, shaivas & shaktas would point out their respective sectarian puranas as pramANa. If we dubiously proclaim that Vaishnava purANas are sattvic and hence only they are to be counted as pramANa, we are in trouble again. Naradiya purana, a sattvic purana, at the very beginning asserts, "He who is Hari is same as Hara, Shiva. There is no difference between them". (At least shaiva puranas are consistent in that they proclaim Shiva as second to none and supreme :-) to Brahma, Vishnu, Indra and other devas). There are other references to Hari- Hara identity in 'sattvic' purANas which I didn't bother to catalogue. To re-iterate, 'Narayana is supreme' is a matter of subjective opinion, which is not necessarily wrong. However the claim that 'Narayana is supreme and this is attested in the Vedas' can be objectively evaluated by examining vedic text themselves. 4. Observation of Indo-Iranian texts - Avesta: This is a side issue. The Avestan language is very similar to vedic sanskrit and the gathas could be translated from avestan persian to sanskrit and vice versa with few simple phonetic rules. Besides, a lot of vedic deities reappear in Avesta *including vishnu*. ( we have to keep in mind though, that daevas are the bad guys and ahuras are the good guys). ahura mazda - asura medhira=varuNa) mithra - mitra rashNu - viShNu verethraghna - vR^itrahan=indra sraosha - sharva=rudra vAyu/vAta- vAyu/vata ardvi sura anAhitA- sarasvati baga - bhaga (as in baghdad!) It is interesting to note how the Indo-Iranian religion evolved (in a different direction) compared to vedic religion. Varuna is the supreme God and Rashnu is a minor deity, and is the judge of souls seeking entrance into heaven. In Zoroastrian religion the souls of the dead must cross the Cinvat Bridge which links heaven and earth. That is where Rashnu guards and makes the soul wait three days, while he reviews the records in the book of life where good and bad deeds have been recorded. An indirect evidence that 'supremacy of Vishnu' is a later 'purANic evolution' and unattested by Vedic canon (or else, among Indo- Iranians, Rashnu would have been supreme - not Varuna). Regards, Kasturi Rangan .K {Moderator's note: The "subjectivity" of the assertion that "VishNu is the Supreme Being" is srI. Anshuman's opinion only. That is not an authoritative opinion taught by our AchAryAs - adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan}
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