A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

""""""""""whether""""""then,"""""""""""56 SWAMl S REPLY TO THE ADDRESSES.Benares, or the ecstatic dances of the followers of ttieprophet of Nadiya one sits at $ie feet of the;"teacher of the Visishtadvaita system with its Vadakale,V.Tenkale," and all the other sub-divisions, or listens withreverence to the Acharyas of the Madhva school; whetherone hears the martialof the secularWa G urukifateSikhs or the sermons of the Grantha Sahib of theUdasis"and "Nirmalas";whether one salutes the Sanyasidisciples of Kabir with Satsahib and listens with joy tothewhether one pores upon the wonderful loreSakhis";have as their basis that system whose authorityis theSruti, the Gita its divine commentary, and the SarirakaSutras its organized system, and all the different sects inIndia from the Paramahansa Parivrajakaeharyas to thepoor despised Mehtar disciples of Lalguru, differentmanifestations.These threePrasthanas",in their differentexplanations as Dvaita, Visishtadvaita, or Advaita with afew minor recensions, form the authorities of the Hinduof that reformer of Kajputana, Dadu, or the works of hisroyal disciple Sundardas, down to the great Nischaladas,the celebrated author of Yichar-Sagar which book hasmore influence in India than any that has been written inany language within the last three centuries; even if oneasks the Bhangi Mehtar of Northern India to sit downand give an account of the teachings of his Lalguru,"-one will find that all these various teachers and schoolsreligion the;Puranas," the modern representatives ofthe ancient Narasamsi," supply the mythology, and theTantras," the modern representatives of the Brahmanas,"supply the ritual.Thus the threePrasthanasas authorities are