ARE SHIVA TEMPLES UNVEDIC ?

Are Shiva Temples unvedic?

In the following blog, the bigots calling themselves ‘vaiṣṇavas’, really bringing disgrace to that community, have claimed:

http://narayanastra.blogspot.in/p/blog-page_7196.html

//The chanting of Rudram in Shiva temples is irrelevant as these temples and such practices are based on agamas which are unvedic.//

Now, if the Shiva Temples are unvedic owing to the reason that they and the practices there are based on agamas that are unvedic, one will have to question ‘what about the Viṣṇu temples?

What are the ‘āgama-s’ they are following? Are they ‘Vedic’?

Here is the reply:

The blogger himself has admitted:

http://narayanastra.blogspot.in/p/a-note-to-our-readers.html

//As an example, some temples follow pAncarAtra Agama and others follow vaikhAnasa.//

We have Shankaracharya on record who has declared in the Brahma sutra bhāṣya 2.2.45 that the ‘pāñcarātra’ āgama is a product of denigration of the Veda by Śāṇḍilya:

वेदविप्रतिषेधश्च भवति — चतुर्षु वेदेषु परं श्रेयोऽलब्ध्वा शाण्डिल्य इदं शास्त्रमधिगतवानित्यादिवेदनिन्दादर्शनात् । तस्मात् असङ्गतैषा कल्पनेति सिद्धम् ॥ ४५ ॥

Translation by Swami Gambhirananda:

[Moreover, this scripture (of the pāñcarātras) contradicts the Vedas, since it is seen to cast a slur on the Vedas by declaring, ‘Not finding the highest good in the four Vedas, Śāṇḍilya studied this scripture.’ Therefore it is concluded that this assumption (kalpanā = doctrine) is illogical.]

The bloggers cannot dismiss the above declaration of Shankara because they have piggy-backed on Shankara for promoting their brand of ‘vaiṣṇavism’ as Vedic in all their blogs.  They have depended on the greatest support from Shankara, the foremost of the Vedantins, for their propaganda of their brand of vaiṣṇavism. They have said that many times, and this is one sample:

http://narayanastra.blogspot.in/p/a-note-to-our-readers.html

// Shankara was a vaishnava, no two ways about it.//

Thus, here is Shankara, a ‘confirmed’ ‘vaiṣṇava’, according to their own certification, declaring the pāñcarātra doctrine as unvedic.  Thus, by their own making, they find themselves today in  this embarrassing situation where their own ‘vaiṣṇava’ Vedāntin ‘withdrawing’ his support for these bloggers. Their enthusiasm in Śiva nindā and portraying Śiva as someone subject to karma vāsanās (at the same time making a show of ‘accepting’ Śiva as the ‘bhāgavatottama’) and holding the ‘Śiva temples to be based on unvedic āgama’ has now boomeranged on them.

Not only Shankaracharya but even Madhusudana Saraswati, another ‘vaiṣṇava’ advaitin in the eyes of the bloggers, has not spared the ‘pāñcarātra’.  In the Daśaślokī, a work by Shankara, there is a statement that the pāñcarātra is not the true tattva.  Madhusudana has written a commentary to this work, acknowledging its authorship as Shankara’s.  Thus, on these counts, the viṣṇu temples are based on unvedic āgamas and all chanting of vedic mantras there are irrelevant and futile.

Om Tat Sat