MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i'd like the find out the truth about how the dikshitars came to be the custodians of the thillai temple. however, the original construction and the people responsible for it are well documented in history.  it was aruLmozhi varman's (aka rAja rAjan) grandfather, parAnthaka chOzhan. rAja rAjan himself improved it and his sister kundavai donated much wealth to the temple.  the structures themselves show evidence of chOzhA architecture.

Hellsangel wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:aside: i am not sure if the koran is actually read in tamil in TN mosques, but there is a rich body of islamic religious poetry dating back to the eighteenth and nineteenth century written in tamil. one of these is the sIrApurANam, a life of the prophet, written in a style closely mimicking and in the same meter as the kambarAmAyaNam.  

The Koran is never read in any other language anywhere in a mosque.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:one more general observation i have about all this. many of the people strenuously insisting on exclusive sanskrit liturgy in temple worship have neither read the original sanskrit texts nor the more accessible literature in their own languages! however, they feel compelled to have an opinion about it! maybe because they feel that any loosy goosiness in hinduism leaves it at a competitive disadvantage compared to the more rigid abrahamic faiths.  

Rashmun wrote:My favorite prayer-song in honor of Lord Shiva is in sanskrit:



This song is believed to have been written by Ravana who was said to have been a great Shiva bhakta.

Rashmun wrote:

Max, did you experience any emotional response when you heard  this song ?

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:

Rashmun wrote:

Max, did you experience any emotional response when you heard  this song ?

i listened to it as background without paying too much attention to the words, but it seems to be a general invocation. i responded to the pathos filled music more. have to say rashmun, not a huge fan of pt. jasraj any longer. there was a time when i listened to nothing but him.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:and since we are talking about the thillai (chidambaram) temple, here is one of those canonical carnatic compositions in the raga poorvi kalyANi by nIlakantha sivan. it's usually rendered as a main piece in a concert with an elaborate raga AlApana and is also a favorite in the BN circuit. it features vocalization of dance rhythms as part of the composition.



it has delightful onomatopoeic descriptions of the sounds of the cosmic dance.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:

it has delightful onomatopoeic descriptions of the sounds of the cosmic dance.

pAdi madi jyOti paLir paLIr ena pAda silamboli galIr galIr ena

Kinnera wrote:Max, you claim to be a brahmin, but don't seem to have even an iota of knowledge about agama sastram. As a non-brahmin, i already knew what smartha was saying. If you have no idea what he's saying, better stay away from this topic. You are jumping up and down only because tamil is involved and viewing everything with your biased mind.

Your understanding about hinduism is very limited, but you talk as if you are authority at it (your comment about hinduism and capital punishment the other day was pretty comical).

Some unqualified moron goes into the sanctum sanctorium and starting singing something out of the norm and gets objected to it. You call the priests 'donkeys' for kicking him out. Would you allow it if someone without any qualifications to be a professor takes your dias and starts lecturing your students something off the subject or syllabus? Wont' you kick him out or report to the authorities?

You claim that carnatic music has enriched your life. With so much aversion for Sanskrit, i wonder abt the kirtanas you tried to understand and enjoyed. Most of the muthuswami dikshitulu's compositions are in sanskrit. I know i know, lately all frantic efforts are being made to compose and incorporate tamil songs into carnatic music by like minded ppl like you. good luck with that.

Here's the thing that's going to annoy you: i think most ppl do find comfortable with sanskrit as most sanskrit words are easy to understand and common in their own languages. Another advantage is that it is the thing that binds all hindus. When i go to the devi navaratri functions, we collectively sing mahishasura mardhini stotrams and lalita sahastra namams. Same with lingastaka strotams, vishnu sahasra namams,etc. The group comprises of ppl from different parts of india, but most everyone seems comfortable with those. Imagine having them in different languages and each not knowing what the other knows. 

Even at the temple here, they do the group Satyanarayana puja, where all the mantras are in sanskrit and most everyone seems to follow it. How difficult is it to understand the avahayamis and samarpayamis, etc? Imagine that being in tamil or any other non-binding language! 

Rashmun reiterated my main point above. I wont' say it again.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i don't know rashmun. in the thirumurais and in carnatic compositions such as the above, the cosmic dance is often though not always described as "Ananda natam", i.e. joyful dance.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:

Hellsangel wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:aside: i am not sure if the koran is actually read in tamil in TN mosques, but there is a rich body of islamic religious poetry dating back to the eighteenth and nineteenth century written in tamil. one of these is the sIrApurANam, a life of the prophet, written in a style closely mimicking and in the same meter as the kambarAmAyaNam.  

The Koran is never read in any other language anywhere in a mosque.

you may be right. and based on what i know about hinduism in TN, hinduism is very ecumenical and does not have this sort of rigidity that seems to be the characteristic of abrahamic faiths like islam. i mean why would someone be required to memorize and recite something they don't even understand as the price of admission? given that, i wonder why some hindus here desire that sort of rigidity in their own religion.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
b) there are no "franctic" efforts to incorporate tamil into carnatic music. tamil compositions have always been part of the body of CM.  oothukkadu venkata subbaiyer who composed in tamil, telugu, and sanskrit predates the trinity by a hundred years. i don't consider CM to be an avenue for competition among languages. they are outpourings of saints, much of which was spontaneous with the probable exception of MD's compositions which i believe were carefully honed with his musical scholarship.

Karnatic music owes a lot to various pre-trinity composers hailing
from Tamilnadu.  In my opinion their contribution to the growth and
development of Karnatic music is not adequately recognized by many.
Here I have listed a few of them along with some discussion about them
and sample compositions so that they can be added to the list of
pre-trinity composers which was under discussion a few weeks ago.
Before going any further I would like to caution readers that in much
of what I write here, the dates mentioned are subject to controversy.

Even early Tamil literature mentions music a lot. An ancient work in
Tamil literature, the tolkAppiyam, has a few references to music.
There is a lot of music related discussion in the silappadikAram (ref.
Prof. S. Ramanathan's thesis on music in the silappadikAram - Wesleyan
University). However there are no tunes surviving from this period.
Perhaps the earliest compositions we have which are set to paNNs
(equivalent to rAgAs) are the compositions of kAraikkAl ammaiyAr
(approx. 5th century AD).

Next come the composers of the tEvAram.  gnAnasambandar (635-651 AD),
appar or tirunAvukkarasar (580-661 AD) and sundarar (about 700 AD). It
is said that each of them composed several thousand padigams but only
a few hundreds are available today.  A few tEvArams that may be
familar to listeners of karnAtic music are sambandar's kAthalAgi
kasinthu (paNN - kausikam, equiv. to bhairavi) and appar's sotrunai
(gAndArapancamam - kEdAragauLa) and vAnanai.  The original tune for
the latter is probably lost; the version sung by KVN and DKJ is in
kIravANi rAga. I have been told that this tune was set by "tOdi"
kaNNan. The viruttam that madurai maNi ayyar used to sing often -
vEyoru tOLi.. is a sambandar tEvAram.

A legend involving sambandar mentions that he composed his first song
(tOdudaiya seviyan) at the age of three - that would perhaps make him
the youngest composer in the whole world.

Many of the tEvAram tunes have been preserved to this date due to the
services of the OduvArs attached to temples. Due to the munificence of
kings like rAjarAja chOzha, they were given lands etc, thus allowing them
to continue their adherence to music.

In the post-tEvAram period came mANickavAcagar, the composer of
tiruvAcakam and tiruvempAvai, sometime in the latter half of the 9th
century AD (controversial date). In his case the original paNNs for
his songs are not available and they are usually sung in mOhanam.
According to some scholars this indicates that he predated the tEvAram
trinity.

Besides these Saivite composers, there were the vaishnavite azhvArs
whose (approximately 4000) compositions are called the nAlAyira
divyaprabandam.  Some of these composers were periAzhvAr, nammAzhvAr,
tirumangaiAzhvAr and ANdAL. It is said that these compositions were
all set to paNNs and that they included some paNNs not used by
sambandhar, appar, etc, but their tunes have been lost.
(Dr.S.Ramanathan mentioned in a lec-dem of his that there are
references which mention the paNNs in which the songs of nammAzhvAr
and tirumangaiAzhvAr were sung. I have also heard him sing a pAsuram
of tirumangaiAzhvAr - paLLiyil Odi - puranErmai paNN - equiv. to
bowLi.) But at some point, the divyaprabandam came to be regarded as
the tamizh vEdam and so people stopped singing them and just recited
them. I am not too sure about these and I leave it to someone more
knowledgeable to give more info.  All these divyaprabandams are
available on-line at
http://reality.sgi.com/employees/mani/prabandham.html

The music of the thEvAram and divyaprabandham had a lot of influence
on the subsequent development of musicology. For example, an important
early musical treatise is the sangIta ratnAkara. The author of this
work, nissanka sArangadEvA, studied many paNNs and wrote about them.
(ref. rangarAmAnuja ayyangAr)

There has already been a lot of discussion on the net about
aruNagirinAthar and his compositions - so I will not mention anything
about him.

One other pre-trinity composer from Tamilnadu, whose dates I am
uncertain about, is UthukADu vEnkatasubbayyar. He was perhaps the
first to compose group kritis on a certain deity worshipped at some
specific temple - something that was followed by all the members of
the trinity. An example of this is the kAmAkshi navAvarNam.  One other
popular kriti of his is tAyE yashOdA in tOdi.


A few centuries later came four great composers in the 16-18th
centuries - muttutANDavar (16 century), pApanAsa mudaliAr (1650-1725),
aruNAcala kavi (1711-1779) and mArimuttA piLLai (1712-1787).

muttutANDavar was one of the architects of the kriti format as we know
it today - i.e. a piece with pallavi, anupallavi and caraNam. While
much has been said about later composers like mArgadarsi sEsha iyengAr
and their contribution to the development of this structure, the
contribution of muttutANDavar goes largely unmentioned. The tunes for
many of his kritis appear to have been lost (this may not be true for
his padams) and many of them were "re-tuned" in the early part of this
century. Some kritis of his which are famous are sEvikka vENdumayya -
AndOLikA - sung by madurai maNi ayyar and GNB, and arumarundOru -
mOhanam/kAmbOji.

muttutANDavar also composed several padams, some of which are still
popular.The late bAlasaraswati used to dance to his kamAs padam -
teruvil vArAnO.  The dhanyAsi padam, ittanai tulAmbaramO, is also
often heard.  He was probably the first major composer of padams and
his example was followed by several other composers such as mArimuttA
piLLai, pApanAsa mudaliAr, kavikunjara bhArati(composer of inimEl avarukkum
- bhairavi and varattum - sAvEri), vaithIswarankoil subbarama ayyar (composer
of padari varukudu - kAmbOji and ini enna pEccu - sahAnA) and ghanam
krishNa ayyar (composer of nittiraiyil - pantuvarALi and tiruvatriyUr
tyAgarAjan - atAnA). The last three were relatively later composers -
ghanam krishNa ayyar was a junior contemporary of tyAgarAjA.

Not many of the compositions of mArimuttA piLLai and papanAsa mudaliAr
have survived till today. The yadukulakAmboji piece kAlai tUkki... and
the tOdi piece ennEramum are compositions of mArimuttA piLLai. vidwAn
b. krishNamUrthy once mentioned in a lec-dem that while both these
pieces were often sung during the turn of the century, most people did
not know who composed them. pApanAsa mudaliar's compositions include
mukattai kAttiya in bhairavi and nadamAdittirintha in kAmbOji.  The
latter is an example of the nindAstuti style in musical compositions
wherein the superficial meaning of the song seems to ridicule the
deity involved.  This was mainly introduced by pApanAsa mudaliAr and
mArimuttA piLLai.  tyAgarAjA has followed this in songs like adigi
sukhAmu - madhyamAvati.

The songs of aruNAcala kavi's rAma nAtakam are very well known and
justly famous. The music for these was composed by two of kavirAyar's
disciples, kOthandarAman and venkatarAman.  But sometime around the
turn of this century, others such as ariyakudi rAmAnuja ayyangAr,
composed different tunes for these songs and the original tunes are no
longer heard. The recent net-debate about kandEn sitayai is also a
reflection of this "tampering".  aruNAcala kavi's rAma nAtakam is
mentioned as gOpAlakrishNa bhArati's chief source of inspiration for
composing his magnum opus, nandanAr caritram.

Sometime between the times of the AzhvArs and nAyanmArs and
muthutAndavar et al, there were a number of simple musical pieces
composed by a group of mystics (usually 18 are listed) known as the
siddhars. The earliest siddhars lived around the 6th or 7th century AD
(sivavAkyar). Their pieces were in simple Tamil and based on folk
tunes.  The famous song tAvAram edukkadi.... is a composition of
kudumbai siddhar.  KVN sings this quite often.

Tamil music has also been the source of some relatively recent
(post-trinity) musical forms which have been incorporated into
Karnatic music concerts such as the kAvaDichindu and the kiLikkanni.
Both these draw heavily from folk music. The most famous composer of
kAvaDichindus is aNNAmalai reddiAr of cinnikuLam (1865-1891). The
famous chenchurutti piece, manjunIgar, which used to be sung memorably
by the late musiri subramaNya iyer among others, is a composition of
his. The late Dr.S.Ramanathan also used to regularly include
kAvaDichindus in his concerts.

The kiLikkani is a set of "love songs" addressed to Lord subramaNya.
They were composed sometime in the 19th century by subbarAyaswami of
ambAsamudram, a devout muruga bhakta and a *head constable* in the
police force. D K Pattammal and her brother, the late D K Jayaraman,
often used to sing one of these beginning with the words, vaLLikanavan
pErai, in their concerts.

A few words about the influence of Tamil music on the the modern
trinity tyAgarAjA, dIkshitar and SyAmA Sastry. (For an interesting
article on tyAgarAjA and Tamil, see S. Pasupathy's article in SRUTI
issue #55, April 1989, page 28. I thank Sri Pasupathy for this
reference as well as lots of other information/references.) All these
composers lived in tanjAvUr which has been the center for paN music
for centuries, it is highly unlikely that they would not have
regularly (if not every day) listened to tEvArams and nAyana music.
tiruvArUr being an important saivite centre and having a major temple
would certainly have attracted the best of OduvArs and nAdaswara
vidwAns.  From various accounts, such as the works of u vE svAminAtha
ayyar, we know that the songs of composers like muttutANDavar etc were
quite popular till they were somewhat upstaged by the flurry of new
compositions in the late 18th and 19th centuries. It is quite natural
that the trinity would have listened to them also.  Given all this, it
is perhaps ironical that composers like annamAchAryA whose
compositions were re-discovered only recently, are said to have
influenced the trinity and thus Karnatic music a lot, whereas the
influence of composers whose compositions were the prevailing ones in
the tanjAvUr region has not been mentioned at all.

To summarize, I have tried to indicate several prominent music
composers from Tamil Nadu and their contribution to Karnatic music.  A
study of their influence on the development of Karnatic music leads
one to expect that the quote of Isaac Newton about seeing further
because he was standing on the shoulders of giants would have befitted
any of the relatively modern composers! It is but appropriate that we
recognize atleast some of the contributions of these early composers.

Kinnera wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:

Hellsangel wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:aside: i am not sure if the koran is actually read in tamil in TN mosques, but there is a rich body of islamic religious poetry dating back to the eighteenth and nineteenth century written in tamil. one of these is the sIrApurANam, a life of the prophet, written in a style closely mimicking and in the same meter as the kambarAmAyaNam.  

The Koran is never read in any other language anywhere in a mosque.

you may be right. and based on what i know about hinduism in TN, hinduism is very ecumenical and does not have this sort of rigidity that seems to be the characteristic of abrahamic faiths like islam. i mean why would someone be required to memorize and recite something they don't even understand as the price of admission? given that, i wonder why some hindus here desire that sort of rigidity in their own religion.

Try telling the muslims to recite the koran in tamil, not arabic and see their reaction. If brave enough, call them donkeys for their reaction and see their further reaction. Anyone has the guts to do that?

Yes, hinduism is not at all rigid when compared to islam, but that deosn't mean that they have to passively take in all kinds of trash that is dissed at them. They do need to be assertive and take a stand whenever needed.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
d) what i said about ritualism etc. is my own worldview. it is as valid or invalid as the next guy's. the only person getting excited here is you.

m v ramana wrote:The music of the thEvAram and divyaprabandham had a lot of influence
on the subsequent development of musicology. For example, an important
early musical treatise is the sangIta ratnAkara. The author of this
work, nissanka sArangadEvA, studied many paNNs and wrote about them.
(ref. rangarAmAnuja ayyangAr)

Rashmun wrote:

m v ramana wrote:The music of the thEvAram and divyaprabandham had a lot of influence
on the subsequent development of musicology. For example, an important
early musical treatise is the sangIta ratnAkara. The author of this
work, nissanka sArangadEvA, studied many paNNs and wrote about them.
(ref. rangarAmAnuja ayyangAr)

--> But the sangita ratnakara is a sanskrit text. in fact, the vast majority of Indian texts on any serious study (i.e. meant for the consumption of intellectuals and scholars and not for the masses)  of  anything related to aesthetics are in sanskrit.

Rashmun wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:one more general observation i have about all this. many of the people strenuously insisting on exclusive sanskrit liturgy in temple worship have neither read the original sanskrit texts nor the more accessible literature in their own languages! however, they feel compelled to have an opinion about it! maybe because they feel that any loosy goosiness in hinduism leaves it at a competitive disadvantage compared to the more rigid abrahamic faiths.  

As Kinnera has said if a temple has a tradition of prayers being said in tamil it should continue to do so, and if it has a tradition of prayers being said in sanskrit it should continue as well. there is no question of any competitive disadvantage if existing traditions are continued.

just to put things in perspective the songs of the Rig Veda are 2,500 3,500 years old. the fact that these songs continue to used in the liturgy of many temples all across India is quite marvelous.

Rashmun wrote:This is an extract from Michael Woods's documentary in which he is talking about Chidambaram and the Dikshitar priests:



One Dikshitar priest tells Woods that the Dikshitars are mentioned in the Puranas.

Kris wrote:>>>Wow, Raja, a Dikshitar who listens to Paul Simon and reads Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and who has been to Europe. These guys don't seem to be all that inward looking. I remember seeing this show, but don't recall this particular bit about Chidambaram. Thanks for posting.

smArtha wrote:

Kris wrote:>>>Wow, Raja, a Dikshitar who listens to Paul Simon and reads Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and who has been to Europe. These guys don't seem to be all that inward looking. I remember seeing this show, but don't recall this particular bit about Chidambaram. Thanks for posting.

I'm not aware of the specific restrictions and expectations on a Chidambaram Dikshitar, but I can tell you that the temple priests are not mandated to be inward looking. It is a a recommended and advised quality,as it is for all Hindus in general and brahmans in particular, but not mandated on anyone. What is mandatory however is that they adhere to the prescribed personal nithya karmas (this grants them and their successors the privilege to be the priests/custodians) and the established practices and rituals of the temple concerned.

smArtha wrote:

Kris wrote:>>>Wow, Raja, a Dikshitar who listens to Paul Simon and reads Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and who has been to Europe. These guys don't seem to be all that inward looking. I remember seeing this show, but don't recall this particular bit about Chidambaram. Thanks for posting.

I'm not aware of the specific restrictions and expectations on a Chidambaram Dikshitar, but I can tell you that the temple priests are not mandated to be inward looking. It is a a recommended and advised quality,as it is for all Hindus in general and brahmans in particular, but not mandated on anyone. What is mandatory however is that they adhere to the prescribed personal nithya karmas (this grants them and their successors the privilege to be the priests/custodians) and the established practices and rituals of the temple concerned.

Rashmun wrote:I would dispute the claim that Hinduism recommends Hindus to be inward looking. The claim arguably holds true for a philosophy like Advaita Vedanta but I do not believe it holds true for all schools of Hindu philosophy. Advaita Vedanta is just one out of the many schools of Hindu philosophy.

smArtha wrote:

Rashmun wrote:I would dispute the claim that Hinduism recommends Hindus to be inward looking. The claim arguably holds true for a philosophy like Advaita Vedanta but I do not believe it holds true for all schools of Hindu philosophy. Advaita Vedanta is just one out of the many schools of Hindu philosophy.

Which ones in specific don't recommend 'inward looking'? 
Afaik, Sankhya, Yoga, Vedanta and the Bhakti based Dvaita & Vishista Advaita all recommend 'inward looking' practices be it kriya, devotion, contemplation, self inquiry, meditation etc.

Rashmun wrote:
For various reasons Sankhya is a complicated philosophy to discuss casually. I of course disagree that original Sankhya advises a Hindu to be inward looking although I would agree this is true for Epic Sankhya which is perilously close to the Advaita Vedanta in terms of ontology and consequently possibly ethics.
I don't consider Yoga to be a theoretical philosophy on its own. Yoga is just practical knowledge of how to keep the body in good health. I consider all the so called philosophy in Yoga to be grafted on later but this so called philosophy is meaningless because the practical exercises in Yoga have no connection with any inherent philosophical outlook. Or if you insist on a philosophical outlook it would have to be with Sankhya. Sankhya-Yoga have traditionally been grouped together.

But the easiest way to disprove the claim that all schools of Hindu philosophy advise the Hindu to be inward looking is the Mimansa or Purva Mimansa. Since the performance of
Vedic rituals is of supreme importance in this philosophy it is actually forbidden to be inward looking in this philosophy.

Other examples can be given. For instance, in Dvaita Vedanta, Madhavacharya has explicitly said that in anything related to sexual or sensual matters direct perception takes precedence over anything written even in the Vedas. This cannot have been said by an inward looking person.

smArtha wrote:

Rashmun wrote:
For various reasons Sankhya is a complicated philosophy to discuss casually. I of course disagree that original Sankhya advises a Hindu to be inward looking although I would agree this is true for Epic Sankhya which is perilously close to the Advaita Vedanta in terms of ontology and consequently possibly ethics.
I don't consider Yoga to be a theoretical philosophy on its own. Yoga is just practical knowledge of how to keep the body in good health. I consider all the so called philosophy in Yoga to be grafted on later but this so called philosophy is meaningless because the practical exercises in Yoga have no connection with any inherent philosophical outlook. Or if you insist on a philosophical outlook it would have to be with Sankhya. Sankhya-Yoga have traditionally been grouped together.

But the easiest way to disprove the claim that all schools of Hindu philosophy advise the Hindu to be inward looking is the Mimansa or Purva Mimansa. Since the performance of
Vedic rituals is of supreme importance in this philosophy it is actually forbidden to be inward looking in this philosophy.

Other examples can be given. For instance, in Dvaita Vedanta, Madhavacharya has explicitly said that in anything related to sexual or sensual matters direct perception takes precedence over anything written even in the Vedas. This cannot have been said by an inward looking person.

Original and Epic Sankhya seems the figment of yours or 'scholar' imagination. No evidence of such a distinction exists in tradition. Bhagavad Gita which predates the Advaita texts/interpretations of Shankaracharya has a full chapter on the Sankhya Yoga and even by then interpretations is very much 'inward looking'.

The first chapter of Patanjali Yoga Sutras is titled 'Samadhi Pada' and the second sutra (which is for all practical purposes the one defining Yoga) states Yogas-citta-vrtti-nirodhah . So much for it being 'originally' a guide to physical health.

pUrva mImAmsa is about the karma as an end in itself and uttara mImAmsa is about Karma as a means to an end i.e. jnAna. Depending on the set of karma kAnda actions in question we can argue if their objective is 'inward looking' or not.

Rashmun wrote:
.....

smArtha wrote:

Rashmun wrote:
.....

This is what happens if we take an academic/scholarly approach to 'darsanas'. Read up a bunch of compilations and excrete/vomit them out unrelated to the context. What has the Mystic Trance (whatever heck you mean by that) and Dream Argument got to do with 'inward looking' unless you extrapolated one or both of them. Why is only Samkhya in Gita an Epic Samkhya and that in Mahabharata not? If 3 schools have a difference on one or two tattvas by no stretch of whatever faculty, one concludes that two of them are distortions on one original? It is equally possible that two of them added more to the original OR two of them dropped some from the original. And how do you identify which is the Original one? In any case the topic has nothing to do with the variants of Samkhya Tattvas as I can show below.  

Starting from Pradhana or Prakriti what are the top 6 tattvas in Samkhya (whichever Samkhya school you subscribe to)?
Leave Prakriti or Pradhana aside how does one get a grasp on the Mahat, Mano, Buddhi, Ahamkara etc which are Tattvas in all Samkhya schools? Is that by external material action? Or through one or other methods of 'inward inquiry'?

That yOga predates Patanjali is well established even in the tradition. yOga goes back to both the aagama(including tantra, yamala, aghOra & kapali texts)  and nigama (samhita, brahmana, aranyaka & upanishad texts). And these are, at the least a good 5000+ years old even by the accepted dating methods. Is your claim that the aagama/nigama texts referred to yOga purely in the context of 'physical exercise and well-being'? 

I have no reference to the quote or context of what is Madhavacharya's view on direct perception? So cannot comment on that one.

Rashmun wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i don't know rashmun. in the thirumurais and in carnatic compositions such as the above, the cosmic dance is often though not always described as "Ananda natam", i.e. joyful dance.

The background of the tandava dance is that Shiva's father in law had arranged for a feast for many people but he did not invite Shiva to this feast because he was uncomfortable with Shiva coming along with his weird followers (most of Shiva's followers or ganas have some kind of deformity for instance one may have only one eye, another could be abnormally scrawny, yet another could be abnormally obese, etc.)  and Shiva himself of course is not exactly sophisticated or well dressed or charming (unlike Vishnu). When Shiva's wife Sati (who was at the time visiting her father) saw that her husband had not been invited to the feast she felt so humiliated and angry that she jumped into a fire and committed suicide. When Shiva came to know of this he rushed to the spot, picked up Sati's corpse and then started dancing the dance of death: the Tandava dance. It was such a terrible dance that there was great turbulence and upheaval in Heaven and Earth as Shiva continued to dance his terrible and angry dance of death.

The question is: How did Shiva eventually calm down and come to his senses?

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:

Rashmun wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i don't know rashmun. in the thirumurais and in carnatic compositions such as the above, the cosmic dance is often though not always described as "Ananda natam", i.e. joyful dance.

The background of the tandava dance is that Shiva's father in law had arranged for a feast for many people but he did not invite Shiva to this feast because he was uncomfortable with Shiva coming along with his weird followers (most of Shiva's followers or ganas have some kind of deformity for instance one may have only one eye, another could be abnormally scrawny, yet another could be abnormally obese, etc.)  and Shiva himself of course is not exactly sophisticated or well dressed or charming (unlike Vishnu). When Shiva's wife Sati (who was at the time visiting her father) saw that her husband had not been invited to the feast she felt so humiliated and angry that she jumped into a fire and committed suicide. When Shiva came to know of this he rushed to the spot, picked up Sati's corpse and then started dancing the dance of death: the Tandava dance. It was such a terrible dance that there was great turbulence and upheaval in Heaven and Earth as Shiva continued to dance his terrible and angry dance of death.

The question is: How did Shiva eventually calm down and come to his senses?

is this a general question you are asking about the cosmic dance or specific to the thillai sthalam? if the latter, i checked with a person that i know who is well versed in the thirumurai scripture and he told me that the nataraja deity installed there is depicted as performing the blissful dance -- Ananda natam and not rudra tAndavam, the other form of the cosmic dance. hence the frequent reference to Ananda natam in carnatic compositions and thirumurai scripture.

Rashmun wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:

Rashmun wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i don't know rashmun. in the thirumurais and in carnatic compositions such as the above, the cosmic dance is often though not always described as "Ananda natam", i.e. joyful dance.

The background of the tandava dance is that Shiva's father in law had arranged for a feast for many people but he did not invite Shiva to this feast because he was uncomfortable with Shiva coming along with his weird followers (most of Shiva's followers or ganas have some kind of deformity for instance one may have only one eye, another could be abnormally scrawny, yet another could be abnormally obese, etc.)  and Shiva himself of course is not exactly sophisticated or well dressed or charming (unlike Vishnu). When Shiva's wife Sati (who was at the time visiting her father) saw that her husband had not been invited to the feast she felt so humiliated and angry that she jumped into a fire and committed suicide. When Shiva came to know of this he rushed to the spot, picked up Sati's corpse and then started dancing the dance of death: the Tandava dance. It was such a terrible dance that there was great turbulence and upheaval in Heaven and Earth as Shiva continued to dance his terrible and angry dance of death.

The question is: How did Shiva eventually calm down and come to his senses?

is this a general question you are asking about the cosmic dance or specific to the thillai sthalam? if the latter, i checked with a person that i know who is well versed in the thirumurai scripture and he told me that the nataraja deity installed there is depicted as performing the blissful dance -- Ananda natam and not rudra tAndavam, the other form of the cosmic dance. hence the frequent reference to Ananda natam in carnatic compositions and thirumurai scripture.

Thanks for the clarification about the fact that the Nataraja deity is associated only with Ananda natam and not rudra Tandavam. This is something very useful to know. Could you ask your friend if he knows of any Shiva temple(s) where the deity is associated with rudra Tandavam? Thanks.

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The answer to my question is: The Gods had approached Vishnu for help. Vishnu then went to where Shiva was dancing the dance of death with Sati in his arms. Vishnu then hurled his sudarshan chakra at Shiva directing it towards Sat's body. The Sudarshan chakra cut Sati's body into 64 parts all of which fell on different spots on Earth and since Sati was no longer in his arms anymore Shiva came to his senses.

bw wrote:

Rashmun wrote:
The answer to my question is: The Gods had approached Vishnu for help. Vishnu then went to where Shiva was dancing the dance of death with Sati in his arms. Vishnu then hurled his sudarshan chakra at Shiva directing it towards Sat's body. The Sudarshan chakra cut Sati's body into 64 parts all of which fell on different spots on Earth and since Sati was no longer in his arms anymore Shiva came to his senses...

AND, all the other cut n vomit....

i feel like reading amar chitra katha comics all over again - that was my primary source of hindu mythology.

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:

bw wrote:

Rashmun wrote:
The answer to my question is: The Gods had approached Vishnu for help. Vishnu then went to where Shiva was dancing the dance of death with Sati in his arms. Vishnu then hurled his sudarshan chakra at Shiva directing it towards Sat's body. The Sudarshan chakra cut Sati's body into 64 parts all of which fell on different spots on Earth and since Sati was no longer in his arms anymore Shiva came to his senses...

AND, all the other cut n vomit....

i feel like reading amar chitra katha comics all over again - that was my primary source of hindu mythology.

to me it looks more like Sindbad and Laila...

Rashmun wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:

Rashmun wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i don't know rashmun. in the thirumurais and in carnatic compositions such as the above, the cosmic dance is often though not always described as "Ananda natam", i.e. joyful dance.

The background of the tandava dance is that Shiva's father in law had arranged for a feast for many people but he did not invite Shiva to this feast because he was uncomfortable with Shiva coming along with his weird followers (most of Shiva's followers or ganas have some kind of deformity for instance one may have only one eye, another could be abnormally scrawny, yet another could be abnormally obese, etc.)  and Shiva himself of course is not exactly sophisticated or well dressed or charming (unlike Vishnu). When Shiva's wife Sati (who was at the time visiting her father) saw that her husband had not been invited to the feast she felt so humiliated and angry that she jumped into a fire and committed suicide. When Shiva came to know of this he rushed to the spot, picked up Sati's corpse and then started dancing the dance of death: the Tandava dance. It was such a terrible dance that there was great turbulence and upheaval in Heaven and Earth as Shiva continued to dance his terrible and angry dance of death.

The question is: How did Shiva eventually calm down and come to his senses?

is this a general question you are asking about the cosmic dance or specific to the thillai sthalam? if the latter, i checked with a person that i know who is well versed in the thirumurai scripture and he told me that the nataraja deity installed there is depicted as performing the blissful dance -- Ananda natam and not rudra tAndavam, the other form of the cosmic dance. hence the frequent reference to Ananda natam in carnatic compositions and thirumurai scripture.

Thanks for the clarification about the fact that the Nataraja deity is associated only with Ananda natam and not rudra Tandavam. This is something very useful to know. Could you ask your friend if he knows of any Shiva temple(s) where the deity is associated with rudra Tandavam? Thanks.

-----
The answer to my question is: The Gods had approached Vishnu for help. Vishnu then went to where Shiva was dancing the dance of death with Sati in his arms. Vishnu then hurled his sudarshan chakra at Shiva directing it towards Sat's body. The Sudarshan chakra cut Sati's body into 64 parts all of which fell on different spots on Earth and since Sati was no longer in his arms anymore Shiva came to his senses.