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Swaminarayan Sampraday

 * "The Indian word is sampradaya, which is difficult to translate. It is not equivalent to a philosophical school, a monastic order, a denomination, a church, or a sect; it is definitely not a cult in the modern American sense. A sampradaya is a tradition which has been handed down from a founder through successive religious teachers and which shapes the followers into a distinct fellowship with institutional forms… To a large extent the individual's exposure to the elements that make up what is called Hinduism comes through participation in a particular sampradaya. Those aspects of belief and practice common to most persons who call themselves Hindus constitute what could be designated "Hinduism in general," but most individuals are first of all "Hindus in particular." Particularity is the essential feature of religious and group affiliation. Certainly it is the case with the satsangis of the Swaminarayan sampradaya." (2)
 * “Pramukh Swami Maharaj (1921–2016) was the religious leader of the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan  Sanstha (BAPS), a denomination of the Swaminarayan Sampraday, which was established by Shastriji Maharaj (1865–1951) in 1907.”
 * "Unlike the doctrine of other groups within the Swaminarayan sampradaya...Shastriji Maharaj argued that Swaminarayan is Purna Purushottam.”
 * "The only other standalone commentaries composed in the Swaminarayan Sampraday are relatively recent, written by Sadhu Bhadreshdas, an ascetic of the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha."
 * "She [Smit Gadhia] gives specific attention to the fourth dimension of akshara as exposited by Swaminarayan—its human embodiment on earth, manifest through the guru. The exact meaning of this has been a point of contention between different branches of the Swaminarayan Sampraday."
 * "Swaminarayan’s description of akshara or Aksharbrahman in the Vachanamrut is critical to the theological and organizational understanding of the Swaminarayan Sampraday for two key reasons. First, it is both Personal or saguna (saguna) as an ideal devotee in the divine abode of Parabrahman as well as manifest on earth, and Impersonal or nirguna (nirguna) as the all-pervading substratum of the entire universe….Second, rather consequently, it is this understanding of aksara, as manifest in human form on earth—as guru—which resulted in an important schism within the Swaminarayan Sampraday. This variance in the theological understanding of akshara led to the formation of BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS), as its leader Shastriji Maharaj (Sadhu Yagnapurushdas) separated from the older Vadtal diocese in 1906. (See Williams 2001 for more on the difference dioceses within the Swaminarayan Sampraday.)"
 * "These presuppositions—punarjanma and moksha—lay out the preamble to a Hindu anthropology and theology of pastoral care. To explain these theologies, I turn to the Śrīmadbhagavadgītā Svāminārāyaṇabhāṣyam, a commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita by Bhadresh Swami, a world-renowned theologian of the Swaminarayan Sampraday." (86)
 * “The first of the guru traditions to be considered here is the Swaminarayan sampradaya with its two separate organisations—the International Satsang Organization (ISSO) and the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Sanstha (BAPS).”
 * “Sadhu Yagnapurushdas, known as Shastriji Mharaj (1865-1951), left the Vadtal Swaminarayan Temple in 1905 to establish the BAPS Swaminarayan Temple in 1905 to establish the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) as a Swaminarayan organization separate from the Vadtal Diocese and Acharya.” (339)

Proposed Merger
1Rename Swaminarayan Sampraday to Narnarayan Dev Gadi and Laxminarayan Dev Gadi to reflect the majority scholarly opinion.