Srila Ramanujacarya is one of the four Vaishnava sampradaya-acaryas. He is the exponent of the Visistadvaita philosophy (non-duality with distinctions, or purified monism), which was the first serious challenge to the monism of Sankaracarya. We all have a great debt to him.
But who was Ramanujacarya? What was he teaching?
Ramanujacarya was born in the village of Sriperumbudur (in the current state of Tamil Nadu, in the south of India) in an aristocratic family. He was married at the age of 16 and four years later, after the death of his father, moved with his family to Kanchi, a city famous for being a center of learning, home of many great scholars. There, he became a student of Yadava Prakasha, a revered scholar in the line of Sankaracarya.
Initially, Yadava was very impressed by Ramanuja’s intelligence, but later he became inimical to him when he started to contest some of his monistic interpretations of verses from the scriptures. Yadava eventually decided to expel him, challenging him to open his own school to teach his devotional conclusions about the absolute truth. Even being a householder, Ramanuja did that and started attracting many followers. Envious, Yadava made a plan to kill him, but it was frustrated. Similarly, the envious king Krimikantha tried to imprison Ramanuja and convert him by force back to the philosophy of Sankaracarya, but his plans were also foiled and he died a miserable death because of his offense.
Once, when Ramanuja was at home studying the scriptures, the great Vaishnava saint Yamunacarya came to his house begging for alms. Welcoming the saint to his house, Ramanuja soon understood his spiritual stature and begged him to be accepted as his disciple. Having found his guru, Ramanuja became an even fiercer exponent of the philosophy of devotion. Eventually, even Yadava Prakasha and his disciples became his followers.
One day, a messenger came from Sri Rangam to inform Ramanuja that his guru was on the verge of death. He departed immediately but was not able to arrive in time. When he finally came, Yamunacarya had already left. His body was in a yoga posture, with the thumb and forefinger of the left hand joined and the other three fingers extended. The right hand was closed into a fist.
No one could understand the meaning of such a posture, but Ramanuja was quick to point it out. He said: “Our guru, the revered Yamunacarya has three wishes he wants to be fulfilled. “
The first desire, he mentioned, was to protect people in general from the onslaught of impersonalism and give them the nectar of the service to Lord Narayana. As he spoke thus, one of the fingers of the dead body of Srila Yamunacarya extended outward. He then mentioned the second desire, to write a commentary on the Vedanta sutra, establishing the Supreme Person as the ultimate reality. As he spoke this, a second finger extended. He then proceeded to declare the third wish: To honor Parasara Muni and other great teachers from the past. As he pronounced this, a third finger extended, confirming that this was indeed the third wish. It was a miracle.
Ramanuja accepted the responsibility of fulfilling all three wishes of his guru and was accepted by the other disciples as their leader and guide. He thus became known as Ramanujacarya and continued the mission of his guru. He became a sannyasi and started preaching more extensively, establishing the devotion to Lord Narayana as the correct path. He departed from this world only when he was 120 years old.
His last instructions to his disciples were:
a) Always remain in the company of devotees and serve them, just as you would serve your spiritual master.
b) Have faith in the words of the Vedas and the previous acaryas.
c) Never become a slave of your senses.
d) Always strive to control the great enemies of self-realization: lust, anger, and greed.
e) Worship Lord Narayana and take refuge in His holy name.
f) Service to pure devotees is the highest activity, and by it, one quickly attains the mercy of the Lord.
Although Yamunacarya and Nathamuni had previously propounded the Visistadvaita philosophy, Ramanujacarya was the first to be able to do it on a large scale, traveling extensively, defeating numerous philosophers, and establishing the devotion to Lord Narayana as the proper path according to the Vedas. For centuries, his followers in the Sri Sampradaya have beem debating with and defeating propounders of the monistic philosophy.
Ramanujacarya wrote the Sri-bhasya, the first real chalenge to the Sariraka-bhasya of Sankaracarya. This commentary was the cornerstone of the Vaishnava refusal of the monistic philosophy. Up to now, Vaishnavas have drawn arguments from this book when faced with opposing arguments.
The Advaita philosophy of Sankara is based on the principle of absolute monism. Everything is Brahman, and there is nothing apart from Brahman, which is seen as homogeneous, undifferentiated, and without qualities or personality. The individual souls are nothing but parts of Brahman that have fallen into illusion, and the material world is false. When the soul becomes free from illusion, individuality finishes, and one merges back into Brahman. Therefore, only Brahman is reality.
Ramanujacarya strongly opposed these ideas, arguing that it’s not possible to cultivate knowledge about an object without qualities. Knowledge necessarily implies the object has certain qualities that can be known. Instead of an impersonal, undifferentiated Brahman, Ramanujacarya brought the concept of a personal God, who has transcendental qualities. He is infinite, all-auspicious, omniscient, and omnipotent and is meant to be served by the infinitesimal souls.
He explained that the Lord appears in five different features, as the arca, the deity in the temple, as different incarnations mentioned in the scriptures, such as Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, Nrshinha, etc. (called Vaibhava), and also in incarnations called Vyuha, such as Vasudeva, Sankarsana, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha. He is also present inside the heart as Antaryami or the Supersoul, and the impersonal Brahman is just the effulgence of His transcendental body.
The Visistadvaita philosophy is defined as “non-duality with distinctions” because while it accepts that everything is God, it makes distinctions between the different energies of the Supreme. In this way, although the souls and matter are also God in the sense of being His energy, there is a distinction between these different features of the Supreme. As Srila Prabhupada explains:
“Krsna should not be thought of as being alone but should be considered as eternally existing with all His manifestations, as described by Rāmānujācārya. In viśiṣṭādvaita philosophy, God’s energies, expansions and incarnations are considered to be oneness in diversity. In other words, God is not separate from all these; everything together is God.” (ToLC Intro)
According to Sri Ramanujacarya, there are three truths (tattva-traya):
a) The sentient (the souls).
b) The non-sentient (matter).
c) The Supreme Lord.
The innumerable living entities, as a collective, are called the sentient energy of the Supreme Lord, whereas the cosmic manifestation is the non-sentient material energy of the Lord. Everything that exists is thus a combination of sentient and non-sentient, just like all living entities are a combination of the body (non-sentient) and the soul (sentient) and the universe itself is a combination of non-sentient matter (the planets, etc.), and the sentient Lord. This philosophy of differentiation, called Visistadvaita-vada, introduced the idea of a personal God, the idea of the material world being illusory but not false, and the idea of devotional service to the Lord as the ultimate goal of life.
Srila Ramanujacarya also propounded the idea that the soul, being infinitesimal, has the propensity to fall victim to ignorance, falling into this temporary and abominable material world. However, when ignorance is destroyed by the practice of devotional service, the soul becomes again liberated. Liberation however does not imply becoming equal with the Supreme Lord. He also established that both the living entities and the material manifestation are parts of the Lord, and not something separated from Him. In other words, the Lord is everything, but He has different energies.
Srila Ramanujacarya also restablished the process of pancaratra, or worship according to regulative principles that had been stopped since the spread of Buddhism. Temple worship is extremely important since it is the process that helps regular people gradually elevate themselves to the path of devotion. Because Sankaracarya focussed on defeating the Buddhist philosophy, without teaching the principles of pancaratra, his followers had to contend with following a process of dry asceticism, which is much more difficult and problematic. Starting from Ramanujacarya, all Vaishnava acaryas have beem emphasizing the process of temple worship as essential.