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Children of Midnight Ramanuja: In the Bhakti movement this man was at the foremost!

YB WEB DESK. Dated: 7/22/2017 12:40:08 PM

‘Ramanuja gave a
philosophic basis to the teachings of Vaishnavism. He wrote a commentary on the Brahma sutras, refuted Shari Kara and offered his own interpretation based on the theistic ideas. His commentaries on Brahma sutras are popularly known as Sri Bhasya.’
By: Major Kulbir Singh
According to Prof. K. A. Nilikanta Sastri, Ramanuja “refuted Mayavada of Sankara, demonstrated that the Upanishads did not teach a strict monism, and built up the philosophy of Visishtadvaita which reconciled devotion to a personal God, with the philosophy of the Vedanta by affirming that the soul, though of the same substance as God and emitted from him rather than created, can obtain bliss not in absorption but in existence near him.”
Ramanuja believed Brahma as Supreme and individual souls as modes or attributes of Brahma. God is attainable by soul through Bhakti. He believed in Sapuna Ishwara or god endowed with many auspicious qualities and virtues. According to him Brahma has two attributes—purusha and prakriti. Brahma is container while, purusha and prakriti are the contained.
The kernel of Ramanuja’s teachings has been summed by Prof. R C. Zaehner thus “to realize the nature of one’s immortal soul as being conditioned by time and space and to see all things in the soul and the soul in all things, is inherent in all men naturally, and it is a godlike state. But this is not to know God, to know God is to love him, and without a passionate and all coming love there can be neither communion nor union with the beloved. Any mystical state which is one of the undifferentiated oneness is the experience that one individual soul enjoys of its own individual self, it has nothing to do with God. Thus, in any form of mystical experience from which love is absent there can be no question of God. He is absent too. To interpret the experience as being identical with the One or All is absurd; beguiled by the beauty and apparent infinity of its own deep nature, the liberated soul so Ramanuja holds mistakes the mustard seed for Mount Mera the drop for the sea.”
In simple words Ramanuja laid emphasis on Bhakti as the principle means of attaining the supreme realty (God) or final bliss. He held that even the Sudras and outcastes could also attain salvation by completely surrendering to the will of the guru.
No doubt the Sudras and other out-castes were permitted to visit the temples only on certain fixed days in a year, but it marked the begin­ning of the movement for their upliftment.
Ramanuja was a Hindu theologian, philosopher, and one of the most important exponents of the Sri Vaishnavism tradition within Hinduism. He was born in a Tamil Brāhmin family in the village of Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. His philosophical foundations for devotionalism were influential to the Bhakti movement. Ramnja’s guru was Yādava Prakāśa, a scholar who was a part of the more ancient Advaita Vedānta monastic tradition. Sri Vaishnava tradition holds that Rāmānuja disagreed with his guru and the non-dualistic Advaita Vedānta, and instead followed in the footsteps of Indian Alvars tradition, the scholars Nāthamuni and Yamunacharya. Ramanuja is famous as the chief proponent of Vishishtadvaita subschool of Vedānta, and his disciples were likely authors of texts such as the Shatyayaniya Upanishad. Ramanuja himself wrote influential texts, such as bhāsya on the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita, all in Sanskrit.
His Vishishtadvaita (qualified monism) philosophy has competed with the Dvaita (theistic dualism) philosophy of Madhvāchārya, and Advaita (monism) philosophy of Ādi Shankara, together the three most influential Vedantic philosophies of the 2nd millennium. Ramnnuja presented the epistemic and soteriological importance of bhakti, or the devotion to a personal God (Vishnu in Rāmānuja’s case) as a means to spiritual liberation. His theories assert that there exists a plurality and distinction between Ātman (soul) and Brahman (metaphysical, ultimate reality), while he also affirmed that there is unity of all souls and that the individual soul has the potential to realize identity with the Brahman.
The traditional hagiographies of Ramanuja state he was born in a Brahmin family, to mother Kānthimathi and father Kesava Somayaji, in Sriperumbudur, near modern Chennai, Tamil Nādu. They place his life in the period of 1017–1137 CE, yielding a lifespan of 120 years. These dates have been questioned by modern scholarship, based on temple records and regional literature of 11th- and 12th-century outside the Sri Vaishnava tradition, and modern era scholars suggest that Rāmānuja may have lived between 1077-1157. Ramanuja married, moved to Kānchipuram, studied in an Advaita Vedānta monastery with Yādava Prakāśa as his guru. Ramanuja and his guru frequently disagreed in interpreting Vedic texts, particularly the Upanishads. Ramanuja and Yādava Prakaśa separated, and thereafter Rāmānuja continued his studies on his own. He attempted to meet another famed Vedanta scholar of 11th-century Yamunāchārya, but Sri Vaishnava tradition holds that the latter died before the meeting and they never met. However, some hagiographies assert that the corpse of Yamunacharya miraculously rose and named Rāmānuja as the new leader of Sri Vaishnava sect previously led by Yamunāchārya. One hagiography states that after leaving Yādava Prakāśa, Rāmānuja was initiated into Sri Vaishnavism by Periya Nambi, also called Māhapurna, another Vedānta scholar. Rāmānuja renounced his married life, and became a Hindu monk. However, states Katherine Young, the historical evidence on whether Rāmānuja led a married life or he did renounce and became a monk is uncertain. Rāmānuja became a priest at the Varadharāja Perumal temple (Vishnu) at Kānchipuram, where he began to teach that moksha (liberation and release from samsara) is to be achieved not with metaphysical, nirguna Brahman but with the help of personal god and saguna Vishnu. Ramanuja has long enjoyed foremost authority in the Sri Vaishnava tradition. A number of traditional biographies of Rāmānuja are known, some written in 12th century, but some written centuries later such as the 17th or 18th century, particularly after the split of the Śrīvaiṣṇava community into the Vadakalais and Teṉkalais, where each community created its own version of Rāmānuja’s hagiography. The Muvayirappaṭi Guruparamparāprabhāva by Brahmatantra Svatantra Jīyar represents the earliest Vadakalai biography, and reflects the Vadakalai view of the succession following Rāmānuja. Ārāyirappaṭi Guruparamparāprabhāva, on the other hand, represents the Tenkalai biography.[citation needed] Other late biographies include the Yatirajavaibhavam by Andhrapurna. Ramanuja gave a philosophic basis to the teachings of Vaishnavism. He wrote a commentary on the Brahma sutras, refuted Shari Kara and offered his own interpretation based on the theistic ideas. His commentaries on Brahma sutras are popularly known as Sri Bhasya.