Search results
Career. Ramanuja 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.
- Overview
- Life
- Philosophy and influence
Ramanuja (born c. 1017, Shriperumbudur, India—died 1137, Shrirangam) South Indian Brahman theologian and philosopher, the single most influential thinker of devotional Hinduism. After a long pilgrimage, Ramanuja settled in Shrirangam, where he organized temple worship and founded centres to disseminate his doctrine of devotion to the god Vishnu and...
Information on the life of Ramanuja consists only of the accounts given in the legendary biographies about him, in which a pious imagination has embroidered historical details. According to tradition, he was born in southern India, in what is now Tamil Nadu (formerly Madras) state. He showed early signs of theological acumen and was sent to Kanchi (Kanchipuram) for schooling, under the teacher Yadavaprakasha, who was a follower of the monistic (Advaita) system of the Vedanta of Shankara, the famous 8th-century philosopher. Ramanuja’s profoundly religious nature was soon at odds with a doctrine that offered no room for a personal god. After falling out with his teacher he had a vision of the god Vishnu and his consort Shri and instituted a daily worship ritual at the place where he beheld them.
Britannica Quiz
Philosophy 101
He became a temple priest at the Varadaraja temple at Kanchi, where he began to expound the doctrine that the goal of those who aspire to final release (moksha) from transmigration is not the impersonal brahman but rather brahman as identified with the personal god Vishnu. In Kanchi, as well as Shrirangam, where he was to become associated with the Ranganatha temple, he developed the teaching that the worship of a personal god and the soul’s union with him is an essential part of the doctrines of the Upanishads (speculative commentaries on the Vedas) on which the system of Vedanta is built; therefore, the teachings of the Vaishnavas and Bhagavatas (worshippers and ardent devotees of Vishnu) are not heterodox. In this he continued the teachings of Yamuna (Yamunacharya; 10th century), his predecessor at Shrirangam, to whom he was related on his mother’s side. He set forth this doctrine in his three major commentaries.
Ramanuja’s chief contribution to philosophy was his insistence that discursive thought is necessary in humanity’s search for the ultimate verities, that the phenomenal world is real and provides real knowledge, and that the exigencies of daily life are not detrimental or even contrary to the life of the spirit. In this emphasis he is the antithesis of Shankara, of whom he was sharply critical and whose interpretation of the scriptures he disputed. Like other adherents of the Vedanta system, Ramanuja accepted that any Vedanta system must base itself on the three “points of departure,” namely, the Upanishads, the Brahma-sutras (brief exposition of the major tenets of the Upanishads), and the Bhagavadgita, the colloquy of the deity Krishna and his friend Arjuna. He wrote no commentary on any single Upanishad but explained in detail the method of understanding the Upanishads in his first major work, the Vedartha-samgraha (“Summary of the Meaning of the Veda”). Much of this was incorporated in his commentary on the Brahma-sutras, the Shri-bhashya, which presents his fully developed views. His commentary on the Bhagavadgita, the Bhagavadgita-bhashya, dates from a later age.
Although Ramanuja’s contribution to Vedanta thought was highly significant, his influence on the course of Hinduism as a religion has been even greater. By allowing the urge for devotional worship (bhakti) into his doctrine of salvation, he aligned the popular religion with the pursuits of philosophy and gave bhakti an intellectual basis. Ever since, bhakti has remained the major force in the religions of Hinduism. His emphasis on the necessity of religious worship as a means of salvation continued in a more systematic context the devotional effusions of the Alvars, the 7th–10th century poet-mystics of southern India, whose verse became incorporated into temple worship. This bhakti devotionalism, guided by Ramanuja, made its way into northern India, where its influence on religious thought and practice has been profound.
Are you a student? Get Britannica Premium for only 24.95 - a 67% discount!
Learn More
Ramanuja’s worldview accepts the ontological reality of three distinct orders: matter, soul, and God. Like Shankara and earlier Vedanta, he admits that there is nonduality (advaita), an ultimate identity of the three orders, but this nonduality for him is asserted of God, who is modified (vishishta; literally “qualified”) by the orders of matter and soul; hence, his doctrine is known as Vishishtadvaita (“qualified nonduality”) as opposed to the unqualified nonduality of Shankara. Central to his organic conception of the universe is the analogy of body and soul: just as the body modifies the soul, has no separate existence from it, and yet is different from it, just so the orders of matter and soul constitute God’s “body,” modifying it, yet having no separate existence from it. The goal of the human soul, therefore, is to serve God just as the body serves the soul. Anything different from God is but a shesha of him, a spilling from the plenitude of his being. All the phenomenal world is a manifestation of the glory of God (vibhuti), and to detract from its reality is to detract from his glory. Ramanuja transformed the practice of ritual action into the practice of divine worship and the way of meditation into a continuous loving pondering of God’s qualities, both in turn a subservient to bhakti, the fully realized devotion that finds God. Thus, release is not merely a shedding of the bonds of transmigration but a positive quest for the contemplation of God, who is pictured as enthroned in his heaven, called Vaikuntha, with his consort and attendants.
Ramanuja’s doctrine, which was passed on and augmented by later generations, still identifies a caste of Brahmans in southern India, the Shrivaishnavas. They became divided into two subcastes, the northern, or Vadakalai, and the southern, or Tenkalai. At issue between the two schools is the question of God’s grace. According to the Vadakalai, who in this seem to follow Ramanuja’s intention more closely, God’s grace is certainly active in man’s quest for him but does not supplant the necessity of man’s acting toward God. The Tenkalai, on the other hand, hold that God’s grace is paramount and that the only gesture needed from man is his total submission to God (prapatti).
He was the first Indian philosopher to provide a systematic theistic interpretation of the philosophy of the Vedas, and is famous for arguing for the epistemic and soteriological significance of bhakti, or devotion to a personal God. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Rāmānuja defended the reality of a plurality of individual persons ...
He had already heard of Ramanuja through his disciples and made up his mind to instal Ramanuja in his place. He now sent for Ramanuja. By the time Ramanuja reached Srirangam, Yamunacharya was dead; and Ramanuja saw his body being taken by his followers to the cremation ground outside the village.
Mar 1, 2021 · He was also known as an Indian theologian, social reformer, philosopher, and one of the most important exponents of Sri Vaishnavism. His philosophical foundations for devotionals were influential to the Bhakti movement. It is believed that Ramanuja is said to have lived all of 120 years, preaching and practicing his philosophy.
Sep 20, 2018 · Ramanuja led a broad religious movement in southern India in the 11th century, substantially changing the course of Hindu religious practice. He taught that the fulfilled life is one of loving worship, service, meditation, and surrender, leading to direct experience of the Supreme Self.
Jul 1, 2015 · THE PHILOSOPHY OF RAMANUJA IS KNOWN AS Vishishtadvaita Vedanta. Like other systems of Vedanta, it is based on the Upanishads, which are also called the Vedanta, because they constitute the end-portion of the Vedas. Anyone who wants to evolve a system of thought based on the Upanishads faces a problem.
