Dear Sri S.V. Samy and readers of SRS: namo narayana! Thank you for your note. My note was only about the meaning of the English word cited. Hope not to side track the interesting discussion. Many use English words without realizing what they actually mean. For instance, when citing chronology, many use the suffix AD, like 1500 AD, etc. But, AD here means "in the year of my Lord Jesus Christ". This is particularly grievous for Sri Vaishnavas for whom there is no one but Sriman Narayana. As Kulasekarazhvar says, like the patient who loves the doctor who treats him with painful cuts and burns, even if Sriman Narayana gives us sorrow and grief, for us there is no one but Sriman Narayana. Therefore, we must never use the abbreviation AD. In stead, use the chronology suffixes, BCE and CE, with BCE = Before Common Era and CE = Common Era. BCE and CE are generally well accepted and understood abbreviations. Coming back to Agnostic, it is quite probable there are no equivalent word in Tamil/Sanskrit for Agnostic. It is equally probable that there is no equivalent word for Atheist and Theist. The dictionary meaning of Atheist is, "one who denies the existence of God". For Theist the meaning is, "belief in the existence of a god or gods". The usual translation for Atheist is "nAStikan", but it is not correct. nAStikan only means one who rejects Vedas. Thus, there are many devout theists who are nAStikAs. In fact we could say that most Theists are nAStikAs. regards, -- dileepan p.s. At 03:52 PM 8/27/2002 +0500, you wrote:
Hari Om.
In our tradition it is customary not the spell out praNavam in public.
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