Re: Do you consider Madhvacharya to be too "hardcore"?
Originally Posted by
Arjun The Vaishnava
I understand what Kumar Das is trying to say here. I too have studied Madhvacharya's philosophy and come to the same conclusion. Madhva's monotheism is stricter than Islam or Christianity because unlike Christianity, he does not show a holy trinity but instead he has shown Vishnu as the only God and the only manifestation of God. Also, God in Dvaita is more definite than Islam's Allah whose properties are left to be unknown (as he is always regarded as being formless but the Wahhabis and Salafis claim that they will behold Allah's form in Jannah- that being the greatest pleasure of paradise) while everything about Vishnu is known and His great attributes are expounded ad inifnitum by Sri Madhvacharya and instead of dismissing the other Hindu gods, he has subjugated them to Vishnu in his hierarchy with Vishnu being the Infinite and Unmatchable at the top, His Shakti Lakshmi next, and then others like Brahma, and the foremost Vaishnava Lord Shiva on lower rungs.
Actually Sri Madhva's vaiShNavism is quite liberal while compared to several other vaishNava-s. He accorded a place to all vedic Gods in his system unlike some others who completely disregarded all other dieties. You would find Madhva priests in shiva temples even today because their system has not tabooed it.
Sri Madhva does not say that everything about about viShNu is known. He says that the Lord is knowable to some extent through the mind and words, but his glory cannot be captured fully by the veda. Infact in his system the Lord has an infinite number of manifestations and how would that come under the "known" category?
Any vedic religion is heads and shoulders above Islam and christianity any day.
Guard your Dharma, Burn the Myth, Promote the Truth, Crush the superstition.
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