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Dear Kasturi Rangan,
Kindly forgive me for pursuing this thread and please feel free to 
correct me if I am wrong. I've heard that Purusha Suktham is in all 
the 3 (rik, yajur and sama) vedas. It talks about the manifestation 
of the Leela Vibhuthi - Material World(starting from 'braahmanosya 
mukham aaseeth') from a being called Virata Purushan('tasmaat viraat 
ajaayatha'). It is stated that the devas performed an yagya called 
sarva aahuthi('tasmaat yagyaath sarvahutha:') upon which the Virata 
Purusha was satisfied and he came before them and initiated the leela 
vibhuti manifestation. It is also stated that the whole universe
(Leela Vibhuti) thus came into existence from his 'Naval'('Naabhya 
aaseeth anthariksham'). 
Now, a) who is this Virata Purushan? b) Why weren't the other deities 
not able to manifest the leela vibhuthi the way this Virata Purushan 
was able to? 
Answer to a) is, this Virata Purushan is the form that we worship, 
that we call as Narayana - (in artha panchakam, this Virata Purushan 
is the Vyuha Vasudevan?!), reasons being: 1) Both these forms have 
been known for the lotus coming out of the naval, and this lotus 
leading to the creation of this universe that we see and live. 2) The 
same purusha sukta continues to say that this Virata Purusha is the 
one who has Hree and Lakshmi as his wives - (hreeshca) Hree and 
(lakshmishca) Laskhmi are (patnyau) wives (te) to you - (reference 
http://www.ramanuja.org/purusha/sukta-6.html#6). Per innumerous 
references from the same vedas, we infer that Narayana aka Vishnu is 
the one who has Hree and Lakshmi as his wives. 
Answer to b) - I don't know. Some learned one could elaborate on the 
same. Well, I could only infer that this is the best form of the 
brahmam(and hence is an equivalent and prime form of the brahmam as 
revealed to the vedic seers) that "is" capable of the "jagat 
vyaparam" and as per the brahma sutras, jagat vyaparam is unique to 
the paramatma. Hence, it is clear without any doubt that this form, 
Narayana, could be claimed and worshipped as the supreme one, per 
vedas.

There are other statements like 'devAnAm parama:' etc. Why even go to 
that, 'tat tvam asi svetha ketho' could be interpreted to mean that 
svethakethu is the brahmam;). There are innumerous ways to interpret 
these statements. Our acharyas had mastered all the vedas and hence 
they could define the context, usage and hence the appropriate 
interpretation for the same, unlike us, who try to interpret the 
same, line by line and hence quote one or two lines from the vedas to 
support our view.

I haven't heard about any other form being claimed by the Vedas as 
the one that performs jagat vyaparam. Learned scholars, kindly feel 
free to correct me.

My apologies for my ignorance and mistakes. Absolutely, no offense 
intended upon anyone. 

Yatheendra Pravanam Vandhe RAMYA Jaamaataram Munim

Adiyen,
Ramanuja Dasan

> (b) Legitimacy of other vedic 'deities' claim to be brahman:
> If we accept the 'entire shruthi' as pramANa, rudra is mentioned 
> as 'devAnAm parama:' supreme God in Taittriya Aranyaka and also 
> termed as pashupathi. Brihaspathi is called brahman!!!!! in 
numerous 
> places in the very first khanda of taittriya samhita. This is no 
> different from another line in nArAyaNopanishad which 
says 'nArAyaNa 
> param brahma'. Do you think we have to turn a blind eye to all 
these 
> with the escape sequence 'all vedanta acharyas didn't doubt 
> NarayaNa's paratvam?'. 






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