How Love Defied Law in Ramanuja

By T. Krishnaji

The great Acharya Ramanuja was as indifferent to formal orthodoxy in his day as Sri Ramana Maharshi was in ours. If the Maharshi extended his upadesa to non-Hindus, Ramanuja did to non-Brahmins. T. Krishnaji tells us the story of it here.

When already famous Ramanuja, the great founder of Visishtadvaita, was initiated by Goshti Purna into a mantra which, the latter declared, was a sure means to salvation and must therefore be carefully guarded and revealed only to those qualified. Ramanuja pledged himself to secrecy, but as soon as he had received the mantra he rushed to the great temple and proclaimed it aloud to all. Goshti Purna was furious at this sacrilege and, summoning him, asked what punishment he expected for breaking a vow made to his guru. Ramanuja replied: "Even if my punishment be hell, I will accept it gladly, since I have given so many others the means to enter heaven." Overcome by this wealth of love, the guru forgave and embraced him.

Even before this Ramanuja had shown impatience of the forms of orthodoxy. He had taken as his guru Kanchi Purna, who was a non-Brahmin, and had invited Kanchi and his wife to come and stay with him in his house. Ramanuja's wife, a strictly orthodox Brahmin, was indignant, as legalistically she had the right to be. Matters came to a head when she and the wife of the guru both went to draw water from the well at the same moment one day. Ramanuja's wife spoke insultingly to the other. Ramanuja was indignant and they had a violent quarrel. After this he sent her off to stay with her parents for a while. The arrangement was that he was to follow her, but instead he gave up the household state and went forth as a sannyasi.

It had been Yamuna (known also as Alavandar), the great bhakti acharya of Srirangam, whom Ramanuja had really wanted as his guru, but out of modesty he had delayed going to him. Yamuna had heard of Ramanuja and envisaged him not only as a disciple but as his successor. Finally he sent a disciple to fetch him; but Ramanuja arrived at Srirangam just too late, when the master's body was already laid out for cremation. Even so the disciples wanted to elevate Ramanuja to their head; but he felt that he had not yet the necessary maturity. He served under the above-mentioned Kanchi Purna, who was one of Yamuna's disciples, became a sannyasi, travelled up and down the country, and took initiation under Goshti Purna before eventually becoming Yamuna's successor.

It is said that on arriving at Srirangam Ramanuja noticed that three fingers on the hand of the dead master were clenched. On asking about it he was told that before dying Yamuna had expressed three desires: that commentaries should be written from the bhakti approach he promulgated to the Brahma Sutra, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Vishnu Sahasranama. Ramanuja gave a solemn undertaking to write them, and the fingers, thereupon straightened out, to the astonishment of all.

It is the Hindu tradition that a teacher wishing to launch a new outlook does not write a philosophy of his own but expresses his views in commentaries on the scriptures so as to show his orthodoxy. It was this that Yamunacharya wished done and that Ramanujacharya undertook and so magnificently accomplished. But not immediately. He was in no hurry but wished first to attain full maturity. Yamunacharya died in 1040. It was about 1049 when Ramanuja donned the ochre robe, as described above. Even after that he spent years in study and travel. He went as far north as Kashmir, where he was given a rare theistic manuscript. He lost it on the way back, but his disciple Kuresa had not merely read it but memorised it, so it could be reconstructed. Throughout India he became known as the champion of theistic, devotional religion.

In order to understand the importance of his work it is necessary to indicate its place in history. The non-Vedic creeds of Jainism and Buddhism had over-spread India to a large extent. In the 9th Century AD the great Acharya Shankara restored the Upanishadic teaching of Advaita: that Reality is non-dual, that the world of forms is a mere illusion (maya) without substance, seeming to be real owing to avidya (ignorance). It followed from this that ritual and worship were mere accessories, the one essential being Knowledge, Jnana Yoga. A great Hindu revival stemmed from this. It was, however, above the heads of the masses, and therefore religion again began to decline and lose fervour. It was reinvigorated in the South by the lives and songs of the poet-saints known as Alvars and Nayanmars, and a new wave of devotional life arose, in which miracles and acts of Divine Grace played a great part. Yamunacharya was one of the great focal points of this movement, and from him the leadership passed on to his still greater successor, Ramanujacharya.

The strict adherents of Advaita spoke of God as Siva; the new devotionalists worshipped Him as Vishnu, thus creating the

distinction between Saivites and Vaishnavites that has continued to this day. There was not always a spirit of tolerance between the two. The Chola king (the largest kingdom of South India) had hitherto shown himself tolerant. He summoned Ramanuja to him but the latter's devoted disciple Kuresa, anticipating danger, went first, impersonating his master. The spirited replies he gave when questioned so enraged the king that the latter had him blinded. Ramanuja therefore stayed outside the Chola Kingdom until this king's death in 1118. But all the time the Vaishnavite tide was rising.

Advaita postulates the Reality of Non-Dual Brahman alone, with achit and chit, body and soul, as illusory phenomena. The dwaitic or dualistic philosophy which Madhva (1197-1271), the third of the great acharyas, was soon to enunciate is frankly pluralistic, treating nature as a distinct and separate reality, though dependent on God. Ramanuja reconciles the Upanishadic statements which identify the individual soul or atma with nature or Paramatma with those that distinguish it from Brahman. He harmonised these passages by treating the soul and nature (prakriti) as distinct but inseparable from God. "All values are ultimately attributable to God alone."

Ramanuja postulated that chit (soul), achit (matter) and Ishvara (Personal God) are eternal and distinct, but chit and achit are inseparable from Ishvara. They may be called the 'adjectival appendages' or 'attributes' of Ishvara. All three are real and ultimate substances, but the one really ultimate, Ishvara, has its inseparable modes and attributes both before and in creation. The Brahman is the sole Reality, notwithstanding its attributes of soul and matter.

Ramanuja's philosophy, which later came to be known as Visishtadvaita, is not merely reconciliation of Advaita and Dwaita. Giving equal validity to the bheda (other) and abheda (no-other) srutis, he evolves a new system of his own. He maintains the distinction between God, soul and matter, while asserting that they are not separate. "We often identify distinct things, like a rose and its redness. The rose is a thing and redness its quality and they cannot be the same, yet we speak of them together as 'rose'. This intimate relationship is called prathak siddhi or inseparability." Light and heat, a flower and its fragrance, fruit and its flavour, sugar and its sweetness, though inseparable are distinct ideas. In other words, to Ramanuja "Brahman carries multiplicity within Himself." Most Christian mystics are Visishtadvaitins. W. T. Stace quotes the great Flemish mystic Ruysbroeck to this effect, speaking of God and the soul. "They always remain separate existences. Their union is like that of sunlight and air or heat and red-hot iron. The sunlight completely permeates and interpenetrates the air, yet air remains air and sunlight remains sunlight. Likewise in red-hot iron, the heat interpenetrates the iron, but heat does not become iron nor iron heat."¹

"To Shankara the identity of God, soul and matter is primary and the difference is secondary. To Ramanuja their difference is primary and their identity is secondary." A critic of Ramanuja's philosophy points out that: "the attempt of Ramanuja to preserve the distinct reality of the finite spirits and insentient matter in the Being of Brahman as Its forms of energy are logically defective as to how they remain in Brahman. Even if they remain, then they must have been absorbed into Its Being and must have lost their distinct individuality."² Another critic observes that the problem of immanence and transcendence could not be reconciled in a system where God and Its modes are eternally real and distinct. This does not really matter, however, because Ramanuja's teaching is less a system for philosophers than a foundation for faith and devotion, and as that it was enormously successful.

The emphasis was shifted from philosophy to worship. Scripturally the system was based largely on the Agamas and Puranas. For Ramanuja "the Divine Spirit is not soulless". God possesses all the auspicious qualities, ananta kalyana gunas, but is free from the reprehensible qualities. He creates and sustains. He is accessible and compassionate. He bestows his grace on his devotees. Devotion as a spiritual path is open to women as well as men and to low castes as well as high. It implies factual or emotional separation from the God one Worships in order to permit of saranagati or surrender. Ramanuja's great postulate is the 'Supreme Personality of God'.

Krishna in the Gita assures Moksha to all who surrender themselves to him.³ God is the Saviour and Protector of His devotees. Helpless as we are, our duty lies in prapatti and saranagati, absolute submission and surrender to God. Self-surrender is the dedication of oneself and is the climax of all religious endeavour. The Ramayana and Bhagavata refer frequently to saranagati, but Ramanuja raised it to the highest religious duty and gave it importance as a spiritual path open to all. Not only did he uphold the supremacy of Vishnu as God but he maintained that the idol in the Vishnu sanctuary, called 'Archa', is no mere token but is God Himself. Lakshmi, the Divine Spouse of Vishnu, is His Mercy and her love flows out towards all His devotees as she mediates with Him for them and for the bestowal of His Grace. Here again a similarity is seen with Christian devotional worship, where the intercession of the Blessed Virgin is a powerful factor.
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1. The Teachings of the Mystics, p. 130.
2. Indian Realism and Modern Challenges, by P. T. Raju, p. 67.
3. Bhagavad Gita, XVIII, 66.

Thus Ramanuja bridged the gulf between philosophy and religion. Visishtadvaita maintains that knowledge being relative, subject and object remain distinct. Chit and achit are equally real. Whereas maya veils the Reality according to Advaita, according to Visishtadvaita it is a Shakti coexistent with Brahman and revealing the Lila or play of the Lord. Though the differences between the two schools are emphasised by philosophers, the ultimate purpose of both is the realization of God. The philosophy of Ramanuja has influenced theistic schools and devotional practice all over India.

Ramanuja lived what is considered in Hindu teaching the full span of human life, one hundred and twenty years, and his achievements were many-sided. Stripped of all the legends that have gathered round him, we see him as a great personality with intense devotion to God and deep love for mankind. While his writing shows a keen intellect, he evinced also a practical genius for religious organisation. And through it all we can see his deep humility. He had numerous disciples, both lay and ascetic, out of whom he chose 74 to continue his work as acharyas. When he foresaw his end he called all his disciples before him and gave them 72 injunctions. Then, with hands folded, he walked round among them saying: "If I have at any time, consciously or unconsciously, offended you in any way I beg you to forgive me before I go away from among you." This was typical of his goodness and humility. He departed this life in 1137. He is immortal and lives enshrined in the heart of every devotee of Vishnu. "He is an instrument of the Divine to spread the religion of devotion and self-surrender to Vishnu, the inner Ruler of all beings, Who gives Himself to those who abandon themselves to Him."