Ganapathi pooja in Vaishnavism

[smaranam]

Ganesha is just a jiva soul and thus he is not the Supreme Lord, he is not Lord Vishnu, he is not Vishnu tattva, he is not Supreme Brahman.

Well, this wasn't exactly what I realized this year. It was Him!

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Anyways, as an aside, I borrowed a lot more time from BAla Mukunda than I was supposed to.

[Sri Vaishnava]

I hope other hindus do not take offense to this, but sri vaishnavas do not accept the existence of Ganesha or that he is a vedic devata.

As per the writings of our acharyas, we recognise only Subrahmanya, the son of Shiva. The deity named vinAyaka (also named by srI adi shankara in his bhashya) according to us is part of Shiva's bhUta gaNas, but is not his son and is not the Ganapati worshipped popularly as Shiva putra.

The rg vedic mantra containing the word "ganapatim" as well as "ganapati" appearing in the Satarudriyam are interpreted as epithets to Vishnu (lord of the nitya sUrIs, known as ganas) by us. In addition, the sahasranAmA vAkya,

yasya dvirada vaktrAdyAh pArisadyAh parassatam | vighnam nighnanti satatam visvaksEnam tamAsrayE

...is interpreted as "We salute the elephant faced gajanana, the nitya suri and the army of nitya sUrIs in thousands, headed by the commander Vishwaksena, who is the destroyer of obstacles to the realisation of Brahman (sriman nArAyaNa)."

Vishwaksena is a nitya sUri and occurs in the pancharAtra agama as well.

Of course, there are other vaishnavas who do accept Ganesha as a legitimate deity, but that is their sampradaya. To each his own.

[brahma jijnasa]

You have a tendency to make puerile misinterpretations of straightforward scriptural statements (such as, for example, arguing that anAdi karma does not imply anAdi samsAra) which no reputable Vaishnava scholar would make. And then, when it is pointed out that you are going against the grain of Vaishnava Vedantic standards of interpretation, you usually respond with something along the lines of the above.

Then why don't you tell Gaudiya vaishnava acaryas that they are "puerile"? They have explained anadi karma thus as I have said. You know, I'm still waiting for you and that your "reputable Vaishnava scholars" to show that the anAdi karma actually means anAdi samsAra.

Getting back to the point, your attempt to rationalize gaNesha worship from the standpoint of "Vaishnavism" is incorrect even as per the particular subsect of gauDIya sampradAya to which you belong. In his own books, Sri Prabhupada did not encourage the worship of gaNesha ... there is not a single temple established by him in which gaNesha was installed for worship.

In my post on Ganesha I said "Scriptures approve worship of the gods, eternally liberated souls, etc., the only question is what of all that is common for Vaishnava practice."

As acknowledged by your colleague jignyAsu "we do worship all deities in yagnAs and in Vishnu temples. This does include authorized Vedic hymns praising various deities having Sriman Narayana as their Atman (as per Vaishnavas)."
You have forgotten that in this very thread Bhāgavatam 11.27.29 was mentioned where it is said that some demigods including Vināyaka are worshiped (http://vedabase.net/sb/11/27/29/en) in chapter "Lord Kṛṣṇa's Instructions on the Process of Deity Worship":

"With offerings such as prokṣaṇa one should worship Durgā, Vināyaka, Vyāsa, Viṣvaksena, the spiritual masters and the various demigods. All these personalities should be in their proper places facing the Deity of the Lord."

Now, I'm not saying that Vināyaka mentioned in this verse is Ganesha but still the verse mentions some divinities and various demigods!
Obviously worship of mentioned divinities and various demigods is not prohibited. That's my point. It does not matter whether Srila Prabhupada established worship of Ganesha or not. It's just a matter of customs of the sampradaya and practical application of the above mentioned Bhāgavatam 11.27.29 verse and similar scriptural injunctions.

He did not, as your have suggested, try to argue that worship of gaNesha with the meditation of his inner paramAtmA was an acceptable meditation. There is no doubt that the AtmA of gaNesha also has nArAyaNa as his inner paramAtmA. The same is true of son, moon, stars, planets, jIva-s, matter, etc. However, that specific meditation (of meditating on the paramAtmA within the AtmA of gaNesha) is not recommended in shAstra - not in any universally accepted shruti, and certainly not in the bhAgavata purANa which is given the greatest importance by Hare Krishna devotees

It seems that your colleague jignyAsu does not agree with you, see above where I have quoted him "This does include authorized Vedic hymns praising various deities having Sriman Narayana as their Atman (as per Vaishnavas)."
If that specific meditation on the paramatma within the divinities is not recommended in the scriptures then why did Sri Radha worshiped Ganesha in this way?
I have already quoted Brahma-vaivarta purana, Krishna janma khanda, ch. CXXIII.54-59, p. 534.
where Radha eulogised Ganesha "You are the supreme Brahma ... there is none superior to you ... you cause the gods to manifest themselves".
If this is not that specific type of meditation or worship, then what is it?
As I have already explained if we carefully examine Radha's eulogy we can clearly see that the words "You are the supreme Brahma ... there is none superior to you ... you cause the gods to manifest themselves" can not be applied to Ganesha who is just a jiva soul (jivatma).
To whom does it apply those words if can not be applied to Ganesha?
Who can be described as "You are the supreme Brahma, etc."?
Guess Who?

regards

[philosoraptor]

You have a tendency to make puerile misinterpretations of straightforward scriptural statements (such as, for example, arguing that anAdi karma does not imply anAdi samsAra) which no reputable Vaishnava scholar would make. And then, when it is pointed out that you are going against the
grain of Vaishnava Vedantic standards of interpretation, you usually respond with something along the lines of the above.

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Then why don't you tell Gaudiya vaishnava acaryas that they are "puerile"? They have explained anadi karma thus as I have said. You know, I'm still waiting for you and that your "reputable Vaishnava scholars" to show that the anAdi karma actually means anAdi samsAra.

I did not say that Gaudiya Vaishnava acharyas are puerile. I said that your misinterpretations of scripture are puerile. Let us not confuse the two. Gaudiya Vaishnavas accept the Vedaantic view that karma is anAdi, and that karma means what everyone else understands it to mean - action in the material world which results in puNyam or pApam. Nowhere in the writings of Baladeva Vidyaabhuushana do we see this being reinterpreted in the sense of a "fall from Vaikuntha." Asking for proof that anAdi karma implies anAdi samsAra is moronic. Every Vedaanta commentator knows that it does, since that is a straightforward inference - Adi Shankara, Madhva, Raamaanuja, Baladeva... they all do. In none of their writings do we see them referring to a "fall from Vaikuntha." The burden of proof is on the challenger to centuries of Vedaantic interpretation to show otherwise.

Getting back to the point, your attempt to rationalize gaNesha worship from the standpoint of "Vaishnavism" is incorrect
even as per the particular subsect of gauDIya sampradAya to which you belong. In his own books, Sri Prabhupada did not
encourage the worship of gaNesha ... there is not a single temple established by him in which gaNesha was installed for
worship.

In my post on Ganesha I said "Scriptures approve worship of the gods, eternally liberated souls, etc., the only question is what of all that is common for Vaishnava practice."

First of all, as a believer in "Jesus is a pure devotee" and "Mohammed is a shaktyavesha avatar," what to speak of other non-Vedic deviations like "fall from Vaikuntha," you have no credibility to speak on behalf of Gaudiya Vaishnavas, what to speak of Vaishnavas in general.

Second, shAstra does not say that gaNesha is an "eternally liberated soul." In fact, there is no universally accepted shruti which even mentions gaNesha.

As acknowledged by your colleague jignyAsu "we do worship all deities in yagnAs and in Vishnu temples. This does include authorized Vedic hymns praising various deities having Sriman Narayana as their Atman (as per Vaishnavas)."

The deities mentioned by jignyAsu are Vedic deities whose names are explicitly mentioned in veda - rudra, indra, agni, vAyu, mitra, varuNa, etc. gaNesha's name is not mentioned in any extant shruti and is not included in that list.

You have forgotten that in this very thread Bhāgavatam 11.27.29 was mentioned where it is said that some demigods including Vināyaka are worshiped (http://vedabase.net/sb/11/27/29/en) in chapter "Lord Kṛṣṇa's Instructions on the Process of Deity Worship":

"With offerings such as prokṣaṇa one should worship Durgā, Vināyaka, Vyāsa, Viṣvaksena, the spiritual masters and the various demigods. All these personalities should be in their proper places facing the Deity of the Lord."

Now, I'm not saying that Vināyaka mentioned in this verse is Ganesha but still the verse mentions some divinities and various demigods!

This is completely irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion. Here is the commentary on that verse from your own sampradAya:

PURPORT According to Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, the Gaṇeśa and Durgā mentioned in this verse are not the same personalities present within the material world; rather, they are eternal associates of the Lord in Vaikuṇṭha. In this world Gaṇeśa, the son of Lord Śiva, is famous for awarding financial success, and the goddess Durgā, the wife of Lord Śiva, is famous as the external, illusory potency of the Supreme Lord. The personalities mentioned here, however, are eternally liberated associates of the Lord who reside in the spiritual sky, beyond the material manifestation. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī quotes from various Vedic literatures to prove that the name Durgā may also indicate the internal potency of the Lord, who is nondifferent from Him. The external, or covering, potency of the Lord expands from this original Durgā. The Durgā of the material world, called Mahā-māyā, assumes the function of bewildering the living entities. Thus a devotee should not fear becoming polluted by worshiping the Durgā mentioned here, who has the same name as illusion, but rather the devotee must show respect to these eternal servitors of the Supreme Lord in Vaikuṇṭha.

Now, you either agree with jIva gosvAmI or you don't. If you don't, then you are no Gaudiya Vaishnava and have no business misrepresenting yourself as such. If you do, then this verse does not bolster your case any, making it quite dishonest for you to try and imply otherwise.

Obviously worship of mentioned divinities and various demigods is not prohibited. That's my point. It does not matter whether Srila Prabhupada established worship of Ganesha or not. It's just a matter of customs of the sampradaya and practical application of the above mentioned Bhāgavatam 11.27.29 verse and similar scriptural injunctions.

Because you are obviously confused, let me remind you that the title of this thread is "Ganapathi pooja in Vaishnavism." In response to jignyAsu's very correct position that nothing need be sought from anya-devatas that cannot be had from the worship of shrIman nArAyaNa, it was you who jumped in and rambled on about tangential points regarding the merits of worshiping entities other than shrIman nArAyaNa, obviously to lay the foundation for your implied position that gaNesha-worship as a liberated soul might be acceptable. So far, you have not proven the case. You cannot show where gaNesha is mentioned as a vedic deity, cannot show that he is a liberated soul, and cannot produce any evidence even from the writers in your own sampradAya (excluding some Jesus followers from ISKCON who obviously lack intellectual credibility) authenticating the worship of gaNesha as a valid ancillary sAdhana.

It seems that your colleague jignyAsu does not agree with you, see above where I have quoted him "This does include authorized Vedic hymns praising various deities having Sriman Narayana as their Atman (as per Vaishnavas)."

Once again, you have no idea what you are talking about. There are no authorized Vedic hymns discussing the worship of an elephant-faced deity who is the son of Shiva, making your point moot.

If that specific meditation on the paramatma within the divinities is not recommended in the scriptures then why did Sri Radha worshiped Ganesha in this way?
I have already quoted Brahma-vaivarta purana, Krishna janma khanda, ch. CXXIII.54-59, p. 534.

Which is not a core scripture for Gaudiya Vaishnavas, and is also not shruti. Thus it has no bearing on practices based on authorized Vedic hymns

[Omkara]

In fact, there is no universally accepted shruti which even mentions gaNesha.

Shaivas (and possibly Smartas and Madhva Vaishnavas, but I'm not sure) identify Ganesha wirh the deity Brahmanaspati mentioned in the Vedas. This identification is of course debatable as there is no mention of Brahmanaspati having an elephant head.

[Omkara]

Some people do not understand how this kind of worship of deities such as Ganesha is not actually addressed to him, ie is not addressed to Ganesha but is addressed to the Supreme Lord, Supreme Brahman. If we carefully examine Radha's eulogy we can clearly see that the words "You are the supreme Brahma ... there is none superior to you ... you cause the gods to manifest themselves" can not be applied to Ganesha who is just a jiva soul (jivatma).
How do we know that these words are not really addressed to Ganesha?
Not one jiva soul or jivatma is supreme Brahman, not one jiva soul or jivatma can be described as "there is none superior to you" and also "you cause the gods to manifest themselves". Obviously only the Supreme Lord who is supreme Brahman or paramatma can be described with these words. So Radha's eulogy of Ganesha is, obviously, addressed not to him but to the paramatma or the supreme Lord situated in his heart. This paramatma is called antaryami or the Supersoul existing in everyone's heart.

I have problems with this logic.
While we say 'Jack is a tall boy' and the attributes of Jack's physical body are applied to the Jiva Jack due to the inseparable relation between soul and the body, 'Jack' is a term that refers to the inseparable combination of the soul and the body. Thus we can say "Jack was born on 12th June 1984" wherein are referring to the body of the composite entity Jack. We can also say that "Jack has existed for all eternity" wherein we are referring to the eternal soul in the composite entity "Jack".

We cannot, however attribute to individual components of "Jack" attributes of each other. We cannot say "Jack's body has existed forever " or "Jack's soul was born on so-and-so date"

Similarly, Brahman abd Jiva are parts of a composite which is as inseparable as the body and the soul. However, we cannot say that Brahman is a being of limited knowledge who transmigrates under the influence of Karma, because we are attributing properties of the other part of the Brahman-Jiva composite to Brahman.

Similarly, we cannot go upto a particular jiva and tell him "You are the supreme lord who creates, sustains and destroys the universe" and then invoke the inseparability of the Antaryamin and Jiva.

Keep in mind that I am not saying that Ganesha is the Supreme Brahman. He is a Jiva.

[ShivaFan]

Philosoraptor: There are no authorized Vedic hymns discussing the worship of an elephant-faced deity who is the son of Shiva

Namaste

Which Vedic hymns name Rama?

Which Vedic hymns name Krishna?

Which Vedic hymns name Garuda?

Which Vedic hymns name Ananta Shesha Naga?

There are no Vedic hymns describing the worship of any of these names? Therefore we should not worship them?

Om Namah Sivaya

[Ganeshprasad]

Pranam

Namaste

Which Vedic hymns name Rama?

Which Vedic hymns name Krishna?

Which Vedic hymns name Garuda?

Which Vedic hymns name Ananta Shesha Naga?

There are no Vedic hymns describing the worship of any of these names? Therefore we should not worship them?

Om Namah Sivaya

Good question, i might add Narayana is not explicit in any samhita yet no Hindu can deny he is Chaturbuja Vishnu, i find strange this whole debate!

Jai Shree Krishna

[philosoraptor]

Actually, nArAyaNa is explicitly mentioned in the mahAnArAyaNa upaniShad, which is the 10th prapataka of the taittirIya AraNyaka which is pramANa for all vedAntists.

kRiShNa is mentioned in the chAndogya upaniShad.

garuDa ("garutmAn") is mentioned in the Rg veda saMhitA.

[jignyAsu]

It seems that your colleague jignyAsu does not agree with you, see above where I have quoted him "This does include authorized Vedic hymns praising various deities having Sriman Narayana as their Atman (as per Vaishnavas)."
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Pranam,

As Philosoraptor mentioned, I quoted that only for Vedic hymns of various deities like Lord Brahma, Agni etc. as opposed to using (Rajasic)Puranas under heavy interpolation. The Bhagavatam verse talks about worshiping deities alongside with Lord Narayana while you are using it to worship deities installed in a separate temple. Worshiping Lord with His associates and guru is but basic Vaishnavam but you are using it to rationalize worship other deities.

We give a lot of importance to the agamas used to install a deity.