poyyars

 I for one agree with you fully... but this thread is about poyyars, persons who are Iyers on the surface fully but do not follow the essential scriptural prescriptions. The definition of a poyyar on the basis of non performance of pancha mahpathakas may be more relevant than the six conditions prescribed by my brother narayanan who has simply listed six things out of a huge number of items. In my opinion it is not wrong to live as a poyyar. Unless we change with times we lose our grounds. Nowadays the discussion on brahminism and spiritualism leads to a journey far away from the reasonable highways and byways. But there should be a maamiyar or swamiyaar to point out what it was in the old days. What I quoted was from a vedic stanza reproduced in mahanarayanopanisat and even while giving vyakhyaanam to that years ago, the interpreters were aware that all these so called sins were being committed and this mantra was only an expiatory measure. The ganga episode in Mahabharatam is a fait accompli, and nowhere in bharatham that episode is justified. Infanticide was the greatest sin for which Kamsa got killed by his nephew. Even gurutalpagamanam may not be relevant today because in certain circumstances one's own wife can become ones teacher in a university.. and then is it a mahapatakam to sleep with one's own wife?
The above quotation is simply a limited addendum to the qualification of a POYYAR and nothing more. In fact if I have only one son out of a married life exceeding 25 years at least one of the sins has been repeated a few times...this will be true with most people including iyers or Poyyars whatever you would like to call them