Page 6 - Sri Ramanujacharya Sahasrabdhi - 1000th year anniversary of Ramanujacarya
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Prof. Hopkins: You see as the same.
Prabhupada: Vitoba means Vishnu. They call Vitoba.
Prof. Hopkins: And the Alavars, the Alavars of Tamil Nadu.
Prabhupada: Alavar.
Prof. Hopkins: Alavar.
Prabhupada: Yes. That is also Vaishnava.
Prof. Hopkins: You would accept their teachings also?
Prabhupada: Oh yes.
Prof. Hopkins: So the real ques on then is Vaishnavas and others
Prabhupada: Yes.
Prof. Hopkins: The central teaching...
Prabhupada: Vaishnava and non-Vaishnava.
Prof. Hopkins: Vaishnava and non-Vaishnava. So it's not a ques on of
sectarian differences within Vaishnavism. (break) And you would see
the worshipers of Siva as impersonalists?
In this conversa on with Professor Hopkins, Srila Prabhupada unequiv-
ocally states that there cannot be any difference philosophically be-
tween the Sri Vaisnavas and the Gaudiya Vaisnavas because both Cai-
tanya Mahaprabhu and Ramanujacarya preach that Krishna is the Su-
preme Lord. This is confirmed by Ramanujacarya himself in his intro-
duc on to his book en tled the Bhagavad-gita Bhasya, Commentary to
the Bhagavad-gita. Ramanujacarya writes:
“The Supreme Lord Krishna whose expansions and incarna ons have
their abode in the transcendental celes al firmament known as
Vaikuṇṭha, which is indestruc ble and limitless and which conforms
with His nature, which is expansive, unfathomable, endless and opu-
lent. That Vaikuṇṭha of infinite wonder, of infinite glory, of infinite maj-
esty and of infinite omnipotence is eternal and imperishable.
The Supreme Lord Krishna by whose will and pleasure trillions of uni-
verses are drama cally displayed by projec on in the material substra-
tum in the modes of sustenta on and dissolu on; the universes so re-
plete with 8,400,000 different species of life and full of so many won-
derfully variegated and amazingly phenomenal crea ons and hosts of
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