@LakshmiNarayanan I think this distinction is discussed in the Pancharatra Agamas. There are actually three forms of Sharanagati: Anga Prapatti, regular Prapatti, and Artha Prapatti. Anga Prapatti eliminates a very limited set of Karmas, regular Prapatti eliminates all Sanchita Karma, and Artha Prapatti eliminates all Sanchita Karma as well as all Prarabdha Karma.

@LakshmiNarayanan But almost no one performs Artha Prapatti. I know of only two people who have ever performed Artha Prapatti in history.

@KeshavSrinivasan Bhagavad RamanujAcharya and Nammazhwar?

@LakshmiNarayanan No, neither of them performed it.

@KeshavSrinivasan Ok, i'm curious now...

@LakshmiNarayanan Manavala Mamunigal is the most famous person to have done Artha Prapatti. I don't remember the details of the other one, it was a woman who lived during the time of Ramanujacharya.

@KeshavSrinivasan Potri Potri!

@LakshmiNarayanan What is Potri?

@KeshavSrinivasan it is a celebratory sign of respect, for example, "Azhwar Emperumaanar Desikar ThiruvadigalE Potri!"

@LakshmiNarayanan Oh ok

@LakshmiNarayanan By the way, do you know Artha Prapatti works? It involves requesting instant death.

@KeshavSrinivasan This is incredible

@LakshmiNarayanan In normal Sharanagati, your Sanchita Karma gets eliminated, but you continue to live on Earth until you experience your remaining Prarabdha Karma. But in extremely rare cases, a person is so desperate to go to Paramapadam right this second, and so they request Sriman Narayana to cancel their remaining Prarabdha Karma and give them immediate death so they can go to Paramapadam immediately.

@KeshavSrinivasan What context did Manavala Mamunigal and the lady do this in?

@LakshmiNarayanan Sriman Narayana only grants this request in rare cases, to extraordinarily great devotees.

@LakshmiNarayanan I don't remember the details of the woman's story, but Manavala Mamunigal did it in the Sri Rangam temple.

@KeshavSrinivasan Ok

@LakshmiNarayanan Manavala Mamunigal spontaneously composed a poem called the Arthi Prabandham requesting Artha Prapatti from Ramanujacharya, whom he was extraordinarily devoted to. In any case, how Artha Prapatti works is as soon as you request it, you fall dead.

@KeshavSrinivasan btw, Pancaratra Agama Upanyasam by SrimanNarayana happened over five nights in the following order: To SheshaNaga Azhwar, To Garuda Azhwar, To SenaiMudaliar, To Brahma and To Rudra - this was told by U. Ve. Velukkudi Krishnan Swamigal in En Pani Podcast.

@LakshmiNarayanan I don't think it was only to them, I'm pretty sure there were a bunch of Rishis in the audience as well.

@KeshavSrinivasan I'm confused about how there are separate Brahma and Rudra Sampradaya under the Vaishnava Branch.

@KeshavSrinivasan Also, what Yagna did Sage Narayana perform?

@LakshmiNarayanan Well, it's because Vishnu taught the principles of Vaishnavism to multiple shishyas, and they each had their own Paramparas. But do you mean, how did these different Paramparas come to have different philosophical views?

@LakshmiNarayanan He performed a Purushamedha Yagna, which is a five day Yagna involving mock human sacrifice. He revealed the Pancharatra Agamas during the nights of the Yagna.

@KeshavSrinivasan Yeah, they all should then follow Pancaratra Upanyasam na

@KeshavSrinivasan And what Yagna is Shiva said to have performed?

@LakshmiNarayanan Well, all four Vaishnava Sampradayams follow the Pancharatra Agamas. The problem is that they interpret the Pancharatra Agamas differently.

@LakshmiNarayanan A Sarvamedha Yagna, which is a Yagna where you give away all worldly possessions.

@KeshavSrinivasan Are you planning to answer this sometime soon? ^

@LakshmiNarayanan Haha, I forgot about that. Maybe I will.

@KeshavSrinivasan you definitely should, it will be very helpful

@LakshmiNarayanan By the way philosophies can change within a Parampara. Madhwas and Gaudiya Vaishnavas both trace their origins to Brahma Sampradayam, but Madhwas believe in Dvaita whereas Gaudiya Vaishnavas believe in Achintya Bhedabheda. That's because Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was originally a shishya of a follower of Madhvacharya, but then he left and founded the Gaudiya Vaishnava sect.

@LakshmiNarayanan Similarly, Ramanandis and Swaminarayan people claim to be part of the Sri Sampradayam. Yet they have different beliefs than Sri Vaishnavas; Ramanandis believe Rama is supreme and Vishnu is an incarnation of Rama, and Swaminarayan people believe in Panchatattva Visistadvaita rather than Ramanujacharya's philosophy of Visistadvaita.

@KeshavSrinivasan So, what philosophical qualification affords distinction to these Sampradayas? e.g. What I'm asking is can a Brahma Sampradaya ever embrace VisistAdvaita in the future?

@LakshmiNarayanan Yes, that is entirely possible. Some shishya of Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada (the founder of ISKCON) could start a new sect advocating Visistadvaita and their sect would still consider itself part of the Brahma Sampradayam.

@KeshavSrinivasan So the distinction is purely based on Lineage!

@LakshmiNarayanan Yeah

@LakshmiNarayanan By the way reason that Ramanandis consider themselves part of the Sri Sampradayam is that they claim that their founder Ramananda was in the Parampara of Kurathalwan; see my question here:

@KeshavSrinivasan So Pancaratra Agamas predate all these Sampradayams correct?

@LakshmiNarayanan Yeah, these are all Kali Yuga things.

@LakshmiNarayanan Although there may have been past Sampradayams in earlier Yugas and Kalpas.

@LakshmiNarayanan By the way, the reason the Swaminarayan sect considers itself part of the Sri Sampradayam is that Swaminarayan's guru claims to have had a dream where he was initiated by Ramanujacharya, haha

@KeshavSrinivasan WHAT! very sufi of him.

@LakshmiNarayanan It says the website is currently unavailable.

@KeshavSrinivasan try again

@LakshmiNarayanan Still says the same thing.

@LakshmiNarayanan Oh, do Sufis do similar things, where they're initiated in dreams?

@KeshavSrinivasan Yeah, their last prophet is well defined so any new revelation is accepted only if it comes in a dream where this last prophet conveys the revelation to the dreamer - this way they don't offend the tenets of Islam regarding the concept of Last Prophet. Sufis commonly say that they get their revelations from Last Prophet in their dreams.

@LakshmiNarayanan Oh ok

@KeshavSrinivasan It is opening for me.

@LakshmiNarayanan Weird, it still shows the same error message. The Springer website successfully loads and all that, it's just that instead of any info about a book it just shows that message.

@KeshavSrinivasan This is the link right? springer.com/us/book/9783319394435

@LakshmiNarayanan By the way, regarding Ramanandis, did you know that they claim that Baudhayana, whom we were discussing earlier, was actually a Ramanandi? See this web page: lordrama.co.in/sri-vaishnav-parampara.html So they claim that Ramanujacharya took the philosophy of Visistadvaita from the Ramanandis.

@LakshmiNarayanan Now as I said Ramananda is supposed to have been in the Parampara of Kurathalwan, Ramanandis don't think Ramananda was their founder, they think he just popularized their sect.

@LakshmiNarayanan OK, finally it worked for me.

@KeshavSrinivasan they don't even give any reason!

@KeshavSrinivasan They believe Ramananda is an incarnation of Lord Rama

@LakshmiNarayanan Yeah, they do.

@LakshmiNarayanan Haha yeah, I don't know what evidence they think they have for Baudhayana being a Ramanandi.

@LakshmiNarayanan Oh, this book seems interesting. I'd love to see a network analysis like this done with Hindu mythology.

@KeshavSrinivasan Yeah I wanted to ask if you are up for doing something like that!

@LakshmiNarayanan Haha, it's not really my field, but I hope someone does it. I think the results would be quite interesting; I think they would be qualitatively different from the results obtained from Greek mythology or any other set of fictional stories.

@KeshavSrinivasan Yeah, it is close to what i do so only i wanted to take a shot, unfortunately I am not well versed in Scripture selection, which texts to analyse how etc,.

@KeshavSrinivasan I have some interesting leads to connect Automata Theory and how to analyse Scripture but still need to flesh it out.

@LakshmiNarayanan I have long thought that Hindu mythology is fundamentally different from other mythologies, in that it is both complex and consistent. Mathematical logic tells us that any sufficiently complex theory cannot be consistent unless it is about something real. For instance, the axioms of arithmetic entail a very complex set of consequences that nevertheless remain consistent, so that tells us that natural numbers are real.

@LakshmiNarayanan The principle is simple enough to illustrate. Let's say you committed a murder and you're on trial, and the attorney asks you where you were the night of the murder. If you want to lie about it, you can try come up with a lie, but assuming the attorney asks enough questions, you'll eventually contradict yourself sooner or later.

@KeshavSrinivasan what do you mean when you say, 'unless it is about something real'?

@LakshmiNarayanan Even if you try to make each new answer consistent with all the previous answers you've given, you'll eventually reach a point where regardless of what answer you give, you'll be contradicting one of your old answers.

@LakshmiNarayanan The only way you can answer an arbitrarily long and detailed list of questions about where you were on the night of the murder without ever contradicting yourself is if you tell the truth, or if you recount another night you've experienced and pretend as if that those events happened on the night of the murder.

@LakshmiNarayanan I mean that a sufficiently complex set of statements can only be consistent if they are true statements about some real object or set of objects.

@KeshavSrinivasan I'm getting confused by the word 'real'

@LakshmiNarayanan OK, I can phrase it without the word real if you're confused by that. A sufficient complex set of statements S can only be consistent if there exists some object or set of objects X such that S is a set of true statements about X.

@KeshavSrinivasan Ooooooh OK.

@KeshavSrinivasan This is one of Godel's theorems right?

@LakshmiNarayanan Yeah, it's related to Godel's Completeness Theorem, not to be confused with his Incompleteness Theorem.

@KeshavSrinivasan Where can I learn more on this?

@KeshavSrinivasan I am more of an Engineer aspiring to be mathematically literate, so please continue!

@LakshmiNarayanan Well, assuming you have the requisite mathematical logic background, you could read Stewart Shapiro's Foundations without Foundationalism.

@LakshmiNarayanan In any case, where I recommend people to start in learning mathematical logic is the fantastic book Godel, Escher, Bach.

@KeshavSrinivasan I have been meaning to read this book for a while now, seems it is high time i did.

@LakshmiNarayanan I can send you it in ebook form.

@KeshavSrinivasan I already have it :)

@KeshavSrinivasan The version i have is a scanned copy, if you have a better one do send.

@LakshmiNarayanan OK, the one I have is also probably a scanned copy, but it looks good. Does yours look good or is it a low-quality scan?

@KeshavSrinivasan it is a good scan but not searchable

@LakshmiNarayanan OK, mine isn't searchable either.

@KeshavSrinivasan Do I need to know first order logic for this book? What are the prerequisites?

@LakshmiNarayanan There are no prerequisites. First-order logic and many other things will be taught in the book.

@KeshavSrinivasan Can you send it?

@LakshmiNarayanan OK, I sent it.

@KeshavSrinivasan Oh I meant the other book lol.

@LakshmiNarayanan Oh, Foundations without Foundationalism has extremely high prerequisites. You need to know second-order logic and model theory and all that.

@KeshavSrinivasan Ok, so that's for long long term then.

@LakshmiNarayanan It's Godel Escher Bach that has no prerequisites and teaches first-order logic and all that.

@KeshavSrinivasan Are you familiar with how automated proof solvers work? was always interested in understanding their scope in layman terms.

@LakshmiNarayanan You mean automated theorem provers? They just start with a set of axioms and just prove all theorems that follow from those axioms.

@KeshavSrinivasan yeah, automated theorem provers

@LakshmiNarayanan You just start with axioms and then repeatedly apply the rules of first-order logic to those axioms.

@LakshmiNarayanan By the time you're done reading Godel Escher Bach, you should be able to write your own automatic theorem prover.

@KeshavSrinivasan haha that sounds cool