Documentation

General Information

Table of Contents

1. These websites
2. The people behind these websites
3. Updates to these sites
4. Compliments and Criticisms
5. Suggestions for Improvement
6. Frequently Asked Questions

These websites

These websites are the products of the efforts of a very small group of individuals who collaborate in the development of online resources on a strictly voluntary basis. Our resources are only concerned with Tattvavâda (Dvaita), the dualist Vedanta revived by Madhva (1238-1317 CE). It will be necessary to look elsewhere for information about Yoga, Advaita, or other subjects.

These websites are intended to be resources for the serious and the scholarly, and are regarded as being very undeveloped still. As such, we discourage any notion that our sites can serve any large-scale purpose or be used in place of conventional means of learning. Do not look upon our sites as one-stop sources for easy enlightenment. (In fact, we suggest you not look for any such instant gratification, at least not where learning is concerned; note that it would be considered absurd to seek instant knowledge of subjects like chemistry or mathematics through a website—Vedanta is no less intense a subject.)

These sites do not carry advertisements, charge fees, or collect donations, so they generate no revenue whatsoever.

There are certain other kinds of features that our websites could conceivably offer, which we choose not to as a matter of policy. These include matrimonials, personals, and solicitations for funds (even for putative worthy causes), etc. Other resources can be availed of for such ends, and these websites are not meant to be all things to all people—it is our opinion that our work should be strictly confined to the spiritual and academic realms.

The people behind these websites

The people who work for these sites are volunteers who take time out of their busy lives to do so, in spite of getting no remuneration or rewards for their efforts.

We are generally very responsive to queries by scholars working on Dvaita Vedanta, but not very much so to casual questions by Mâdhva people themselves. We have neither the resources, nor the interest, to answer all queries from the latter group (especially those that can be answered by reference to other sources), and do not see doing so as a goal of our work. Yes, we realize that it can be hard to find information on Dvaita Vedanta, its institutions, and its people, but point out that we face such difficulty ourselves as well. (In fact, with no offense intended, we make bold to say that our perception of such difficulty is keener than that of most.) Queries sent to us may, at the admins' discretion, be forwarded to our volunteers, and sometimes individual volunteers try to respond to sincere queries about institutions of the Mâdhva tradition, ways to contact these, etc., to the best of their time and ability, but this may not suffice for whatever you are looking for.

We cannot arrange to ship books, music tapes/CDs, etc., or service any such real-life requests. We also do not run temples or other institutions at any locations, or have any inside connections with people who do. (This does not mean there are no temples or institutions of the Mâdhva tradition, but just that we, the people who work on the websites, do not run any.) We are not wealthy or influential, and do not have the wherewithal to make charitable financial contributions.

Those connected with these sites may socialize—or not—as they choose individually, but they do not form or endorse any (offline) social groups, or seek real-life social interactions through these sites. If you send one of us a note asking for a phone number, be prepared to be turned down (or to get no response at all), especially if we suspect that your intention is to try to gain some (incorrectly) perceived advantage or benefit. (Hardly anyone ever asks for a phone number because he wants to help in some way.)

Updates to these sites

We have a moderated announcement list where we post notices of significant updates to these sites. This is a low-volume list and has the same privacy policy as the Dvaita List, so it should not add to your mail load. Feel free to sign up, or check the archives.

Compliments and Criticisms

Very frequently, we receive viewers' compliments about the websites. If you sent us something of this nature, or meant to, we thank you. However, owing to the nature of things, we cannot respond individually to such messages, as our time, what little of it we can spare, is better spent on real work rather than idle exchanges.

That is also our general attitude towards criticisms. We appreciate the interest taken, and welcome actionable, sensible criticisms, but make no promises that our responsiveness will meet any standards you may choose to apply.

Suggestions for Improvement

Please use our web forum at dvaita.info. We are particularly interested in bibliography contributions and transcription/correction work.

We do wish to improve the quality and quantity of our offerings, but truth be told, it is also somewhat unlikely that we can act quickly on suggestions for improvement (other than those for simple error-corrections and the like).

This is so for the following reasons:

1. we have probably had that idea ourselves, and see nothing new (keep in mind that on the website we generally display only the polished or finished offerings, not works in progress);
2. the idea is unworkable given the constraints we face—chiefly, the constraints of (i) time (it takes a significant number of man-hours to achieve anything useful, and since there are only a very small number of people working, there are severe limits on what can be achieved) and (ii) resources (suggestions for addition of more or better images, or music or recited stotra-s, etc., cannot be implemented as such are not available with us).

We sometimes hear from people who say that they cannot help with what we are presently doing, but if we do something else (which is invariably time-intensive, and always involves little or no effort on their part), they will try to. Our response, not surprisingly, is either silence or a rebuff.

On the other hand, if you're willing and keen to work for the website or similar resources, by all means let us know—we will welcome you, and your ideas, with open arms. Several of our volunteers, including some who would read any message you may send, have joined us in this way. It is also not necessary for a person to be steeped in tradition (or even to be born a Mâdhva) to work on these sites—many of our sterling contributions have come from people not born into the tradition.

Frequently Asked Questions

Some of the most frequent types of questions we get are already addressed above. Some others are:

1. May we link to your site, or to a page therein?

   Yes, by all means, but please make sure that you have the URL given exactly; a bad link does not help anyone.

   We also forbid copying our contents, or making them look as if they come from your site—just use plain links, not frames, roboting, rewriting, etc.

2. Will you give a link to our website, if we give one to yours?

   Generally, no—at least, not on those terms. We do not intend our websites to be portals to other sites, and our list of links of interest is only a small collection of sites representing interests we feel our audience will have. We do not intend our list of links to be comprehensive in any way, and only give a link to a site if it has some singular quality, is not commercial in nature, and has no content we strongly object to. (We regard even private websites featuring banner ads and the like as being commercial.)

3. Can you provide stotra texts in Kannada (or another) script?

   No, unfortunately, because there is not at present a good system for creating Kannada documents using LaTeX/ITRANS—there was a good start with the KanTeX project, but that group seems to have disbanded around 1997, rather soon after it started, after just putting out its version 1.0 release. We cannot afford proprietory software systems for Kannada, either financially or in terms of the hassle of using them alongside our existing text-encoding solutions.

4. Can you send information about Madhva/his doctrine/his works to me by e-mail?

   We have received this type of query an amazingly large number of times, but still do not understand what is being asked. Not surprisingly, the answer is "No."