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Ramanuja’s philosophy

CHENNAI: The philosophy of the Vedas is enshrined in the Upanishads, which are their concluding portion and hence known in popular parlance as Vedanta. As the Upanishads are many, Vyasa composed the Brahmasutras (Vedantasutras) as a systematic presentation of their teachings. The Brahmasutras are terse and hence the necessity to elucidate them arose which resulted in the different traditions of Vedanta.

In his discourse, Sri M.A.Venkatakrishnan said in his hymns Nammazhwar expounded whatever Vyasa had and Ramanuja composed his commentary on the Brahmasutras, the Sribhashya, with the insight offered by Nammazhwar. The biographical details about Ramanuja’s mission in consolidating the philosophy of Visishtadvaita throw light on how his predecessor Yamunacharya (Alavandar) had chosen him for this task. As the Tamil hymns of the Azhwars, the Nalayira Divyaprabandham, are also accorded the same status as the Vedas in this tradition, the Visishtadvaita system is known as Ubhayavedanta. The confluence of these two scriptures in the philosophical tradition begins with Ramanuja.

Ramanuja wrote commentaries on the Prasthanatraya—the Brahmasutras, Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. He wrote three commentaries on the Brahmasutras, the Vedartha Sangraha as a comprehensive commentary on the Upanishads, and one on the Gita. A doubt that will arise while reading the Sribhashya is why Ramanuja had not cited Nammazhwar’s hymns to substantiate his arguments in this work as the tradition strongly advocates this view. Scholars state that as the Prasthanatraya are the core texts common to all Vedanta systems, Ramanuja limited his references only to scriptures that were accepted by all Vedantins.

This can be seen in the elucidation of one of the central doctrines of Visishtadvaita in his Sribhashya that the Supreme Being who is all-pervasive is immanent in all, the relationship between the Lord and His creation being that between the soul and the body. This is on the lines of one of the opening verses of Nammazhwar’s Tiruvaymozhi, “… He is there in all the things made of these, hidden, like life in the body, everywhere.”

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