Vaisnavism

Bishop Isc Mar Philoxenos gifted me a copy of his book Grace in Vaisnavism and Christianity, based on his doctoral thesis.

What makes his claim more authentic is the fact that Orissa during the medieval period had transformed itself into a cradle of unparalleled type of religious syncretism where there existed a happy amalgamation of such divergent sects like Saivism, Vaisnavism, Saktism and also Buddhism.

In short, no case can be made against Bengal Vaisnavism on the grounds that its basis is aesthetics rather than rational metaphysics, and one would have to judge it by standards other than those of a probably unduly rationalised "original" austere Krsna religion.

Professor Acharya came across three early works of the Pancaratra or tantric Vaisnavism that he has edited for this edition.

In Indian Vaisnavism, moreover, the Buddha/Sugata is traditionally viewed as the penultimate incarnation or 'descent' (avatara) of Visnu from heaven to earth in human form to re-establish 'true Dharma' (saddharma) and protect worshippers from 'heretics'.

7) The author has challengingly defined his task ahead as a 'cultural responsibility'--a responsibility to situate Sridhara together with his commentaries on BG, VP and Bhp with remarkable comprehensiveness within the ambit of a dignified synthesis/syncretism of Saktism, Saivism, Sankhya dualism, Vedantic monism and Vaisnavism. While so doing, the major problem Sukla faces is Sridhara's identification of Krsna with the Absolute Reality, even though historians and cultural anthropologists have frequently underplayed Krsna as a mythical figure rather than accepting Him as the Ultimate Reality.

In his article "Vaisnavism on Hans Kung," Yadav confessed, if not professed, his personal belief in one God, (7) and in "Buddhism on Rosenzweig," he defined God as moral humanity--a community in search of freedom from slavery to possessive ego.

(9) Julia Shaw, 'Naga sculptures in Sanchi's archaeological landscape: Buddhism, Vaisnavism, and local agricultural cults in central India, first century BCE to fifth century CE', Artibus Asiae, 64, 1 (2004): fig.

Tantra is seen as the esoteric undercurrent of yogic practices forming the experiential basis of multiple theological systems, primarily Tantrik Buddhism, Jainism, Saivism and Vaisnavism. On the personal level Tantra is the effort to overcome all obstacles; on the social level it is the fight against exploitation and the effort to establish sama samaja tattva (the principle of social equality).

It is well known that Baladeva was a trained Madhva sannyasl who later converted to Gaudiya Vaisnavism after meeting Radhadamodara, a Gaudiya scholar, in Puri (Okita 2011: 208).

As in the West, medieval Indian religion and philosophy experienced conflicts and interaction/assimilation of different thoughts and esoteric practices of which Saktism Hindu and Buddhist Tantricism, Chaitanya Vaisnavism and Vaisnava Sahajiya cult stand prominent.

In the various cults that later became Vaisnavism, Balarama was portrayed as a form of the minor deity Sesa, the divine snake born on earth as a human being.

In a recent article that attempts to address all of these issues, Nadine Dalsheimer and Pierre-Yves Manguin argue that the popularity of Visnu in ancient Southeast Asia -- and particularly in Preangkorian Khmer civilisation (generally defined as pre-ninth-century CE) -- was due to the role played by Vaisnavism in Southeast Asian trading networks.

(10.) Recently, however, there has been a growing body of scholarship on other forms of Indian thought and spirituality, in particular on Sri Vaisnavism. See the work of John Carman, Vasudha Narsyanan, Clooney, and others.

What, then, would come to be identifiable as Gaud[i.bar]ya Vaisnavism? Stewart discusses the problem in terms of theology, of ritual, and of canon, returning each time to the CC as the key, the "grammar," that allows us to understand and even marvel at the school's remarkable coherence in the presence of considerable difference.