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karna
14 April 2011, 10:46 PM
Namaskar,

There seems to be some confusion here and elsewhere. Dvaita's monotheism is not like Christianity at all where other gods are totally negated. In dvaita, Vishnu is held as the supreme God, but other gods are also accepted. Only they're part of the hierarchy called as devata taratamya (hierarchy of gods). In fact, there's also daitya taratamya (hierarchy of demons).

Point is, nothing is rejected in dvaita. It's accepted as part of hierarchy, with Vishnu as supreme.

Karna

Sahasranama
15 April 2011, 12:38 AM
Yes, the abrahamics explicitly say:

thou shall have no other gods in front of me (exodus 20:3)

Adhvagat
15 April 2011, 01:29 AM
daitya taratamya

Can you speak more of this? Where do I find more information about this?

Is there a cult devoted to worshipping demons?

Sahasranama
15 April 2011, 02:12 AM
Is there a cult devoted to worshipping demons?

Christianity

karna
15 April 2011, 02:16 AM
Can you speak more of this? Where do I find more information about this?

Is there a cult devoted to worshipping demons?

Daithya taratamya has nothing to do with demon worship. It's about the hierarchy of demons/asuras. In dvaita, the demon kali heads the list followed by other demons like dwapara etc. This is the hierarchy for demons, just as there's a hierarchy for devatas where Vishnu is first followed by his consort, Laxmi, and so on.

Adhvagat
15 April 2011, 02:18 AM
Well, if we look at christianity history and the church I guess we can say that. :p

However, I'm thinking demons like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahisasura

I mean, there are vedic sampradayas, can't there be asuric sampradayas? :)

After I read that the Lal Kitab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lal_Kitab) was probably construed by Ravana, my suspicion of an asuric body of knowledge rose.

Sahasranama
15 April 2011, 02:25 AM
Ravana was a great pandita, but I don't think he authored the lal kitab, this book is probably a later text. Ravana is said to have authored the tantrik version of the mahanyasa.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20071021/spectrum/society1.htm

Adhvagat
15 April 2011, 02:39 AM
Thanks for the link.

It seems like this shift from deva to asura worship indeed was a process in Kali Yuga.


Originally, Asura, in the earliest hymns of the Rig Veda, meant any supernatural spirit, both good and bad. Since the /s/ of the Indic linguistic branch is cognate with the /h/ of the Early Iranian languages, the word Asura, representing a category of celestial beings, became the word Ahura (Mazda), the Supreme God of the monotheistic Zoroastrians.

Also look at this:


In Hinduism, the Asura (Sanskrit: असुर) are a group of power-seeking deities, sometimes considered sinful and materialistic. They were opposed to the Devas. Both groups are children of Kasyapa. However, in early Vedic religion Asuras and Devas both were deities who constantly compete with each other, some bearing both designations at the same time. Asura is cognate to Ahura—indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary recognizes the use of the term in reference to Zoroastrianism, where "Ahura" would perhaps be more appropriate—and Old Norse "Æsir", which implies a common Proto-Indo-European origin for the Asura and the Æsir. In entry 48 of his Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Julius Pokorny reconstructs this common origin as *ansu-.

It's also nice to look at the symbology of this asura/deva dichotomy, because we live this everyday, fighting our animal instincts (asura) while pursuing transcendence (deva). Asuras and devas are right here on our brains.

Regarding this deva/asura transition and a transition from dharmic to abrahamic, I guess I'll draw some timelines and graphs and present some questions on other threads.