Talk:Pancha Tattva (Vaishnavism)

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I have deleted a link to harekrsna.com. the site knowingly and persistently bootlegs book-length copyrighted text.

At <harekrsna.com/philosophy/acarya/writings.htm> (prefix that with "www") you will find more than 50 volumes of copyrighted books the site has no right to publish.

Further information is available from the rights and permissions department of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, www.bbt.info.

The relevant Wikipedia policy appears in Wikipedia:Copyrights, in Section 4.3, "Linking to copyrighted works."

O Govinda 19:28, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Strange

I've always heard the word in the context of the five elements: Vayu, Agni, Akasha, Prithvi and Jala. It remains to be seen how notable is this interpretation of this article, but in any case, the mainstream view should at least exist on this page. deeptrivia (talk) 01:56, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

do you mean 'Pancha' (five) or 'Pancha Tattva'? In this context the meaning does not refer to the five elements. The five personalities are regarded as the five aspects of the Absolute Truth in Gaudiya Vaishnava philosophy. If the phrase Panca Tattva is also used to describe the five elements then I'd suggest a disambiguation link at the start. GourangaUK 16:04, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I understand that. The question is how notable "this context" is? The word panchatattva is very widely used. In a google search, I did find the descriptions that match this article, but they were all related to ISKCON/Hare Krishna. I am not sure why they decided to use this very common Hindi/Sanskrit word to mean "personalities" or "Truth", because literally it does mean element ([1]). Mainstream Sanskrit and Hindi literature uses this word exclusively to mean "five elements" (see examples). deeptrivia (talk) 01:53, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Hi Deeptrivia, the term has been used, at least in Gaudiya Vaishnavism for the past 500 years. Tattva is used to exstensively in the Puranas to denote a type of 'truth' or 'form' (as in Vishnu-tattva, jiva-tattva etc...), so I'm assuming it was a simple case of putting the number 5 before it. See tattva for examples. Regards, GourangaUK 08:43, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

You are right about the term being used in Gaudiya Vaishnavism to denote essence of truth, as the vedabase (Copyright Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International) link suggests. But the question is how many people follow this sect. Of the order of a million, ten million, or perhaps even a hundred million (highly doubtable)? There are a billion Hindus. I find the Gaudiya Vaishnava interpretation very interesting, and can easily appreciate how it fits into their philosophy. However, the mainstream interpretation is different: e.g., death has since ancient times as a person's submergence into panchatattva (the body is made of panchatattva (earth, water, etc.), into which it disappears after death. deeptrivia (talk) 15:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it so much a case of different interpretations, as a case of the same words being used to describe two totally different things at different times by different cultures. There may be a billion 'Hindus' but as Hinduism itself is such a mix of diverse sub-cultures I wouldn't have thought there was a strongly identifiable mainstream as such? Ys, GourangaUK 15:50, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mahābhūta

Any details regarding Ganachakra and Panchamakara are of much greater relevance within the Mahābhūta article and thus I have removed the information (which consisted largely of a quotation) from this article. Regards, Gouranga(UK) 09:14, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Well populate those articles to which you make reference instead of removing content that is valid and informing and directly relevant to this Sanskrit term. Stop being a Vaishnava separatist.

B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) 09:25, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

You are free to move the information across - it is not relevant in this context. Gouranga(UK) 09:28, 9 July 2007 (UTC)