Changes

{{ToBeEdited}}THE LIFE OF RAMANUJA IN BRIEF, AND HIS SOJOURN TO KARNATAKA IN SOME DETAIL rte tt स्थल...

{{ToBeEdited}}

Sri Ramanuja was born on Thursday 4th April 1017 A.D. (Pingala Chittirai Sukla Panchami) in the star of Aridra corresponding to Saka year 939, and Kalli year 4118. His father was Aasuri Keshavacharya, who was a Somayaji. His mother, who was the sister of Periya Tirumalai Nambi, a disciple of Yamuna, was by name Bhudevi, the elder one of the two. The other sister of Nambi by name Sridevi was given to one K, amalanayana Bhattar of Madhuramangala, to whom was born Govinda Bhattar, a cousin brother of Ramanuja, to be known as Embar later on, on passing into the ascetic order. Sri Ramanuja'y birth place is Sri Perumbudur. some 40 miles away from moder Madras, Chennai, near Kanchipuram, a hollowed pilgrim centre of pauranic fame. It was his uncle Nambi who on seeing child Ramanuja, named him so, as he had features said to have been possessed by Lashmana in the Ramayana. The child grew up well, was given Brahmamical initiation at the right age, and was taught basic grounds of education by the father himself. The family belonged to the Vadama group, devoted to Vishnu deeply, perhaps, in the mature Bhagavatha tradition. This is important to note that Ramanuja was to receive the Srivaishnava five fold initiation, into proper SriVaishnavism, very much later, round about his 18th or 20th year of age, from Periya Nambi or (Mahapurna), another illustrious disciple of Yamuna at Madurantakam; and also he knew next to nothing of the ‘Four Thousand Hymns’ of the Alwars, until after he was installed on the seat of Yamuna as a Yati (monk), from other teachers hailing in the lineage of Yamuna. But Ramanuja had learnt the Vedas, the auxiliary sciences, and other useful sastras while still young under the tutelage of his own father, in his own native place, while quite young. But higher education in terms of being initiated into the mysteries of the Upanishads, the Sutras and Gita could not be pursued at home, as perhaps Ramanuja lost his father at that stage. Naturally he had to look for others to guide him. Nambi, his maternal uncle staying at the Holy Hills of Tirumalai was ageing and too far. But still it is strange that Ramanuja could not think of going to him, or of seeking refuge under other disciples of Yamuna at Sri Rangam | we do not know the reasons. There was a scholar at Kancheepuram itself, near about Ramanuja's birth place, by name Yadavaprakasha, who was running an academy of sorts and instructing pupils'in the higher lore. Though belonging to the advaitic persuasion of Vedanta school, he had developed unhappiness in it in some aspects, and was trying to improve on it in a more realistic direction avoiding the view of Ilusionism or Maya Vada, though within advaitic premises, to be called a Bhedabhedin by his contemporaries. His intention was to reconcile the multiplicity of experience with the unity of it, after his predecessor Bhaskara had failed in an earlier similar attempt. Yadava was no doubt a great scholar, but pervert in many senses ! He had a habit of �taunting Theists even in private classes, and preferred to accept round-about meanings rather than obvious straight forward meanings of texts. That was due to the arrogance of a heavy load of intoxicating, dry knowledge of various lores at his command, and of course his pervert intellect. How Ramanuja came to think of him, at all, as a possible teacher of his, is really a mystery ! Unless we recognise Ramanuja's status as a mere Vadama Bhagavatha Vaishnava seeking knowledge in general from another similar one of the times, we cannot explain this. We have mentioned earlier that Brahmamical loyalties and moorings in terms of deities and doctrines were quite flexible in those days. Otherwise Ramanuja's cousin, born as a Vaishnava would not have accepted Shaivism to remain at the same time, priest at the Kalahasti Shiva temple near by, even at the mercy of Yadava, and being tricked by him ! His reconvesion into the Vaishnava fold by Nambi is well known, later on. Anyway, Ramanuja approached Yadava, was received, and begun tobe taught. But the two did not get on for long, as there were clashes of views, interpretations and grasps of divine. intuitions preserved in the Upanishads, Ramanuja being a born genius, and Yadava being a pedagogue, accumulating cumbersome knowledge, laboriously, tainted in pervert perspectives! Govinda too was with him in this academy. Ramanuja was perhaps in his teens then. Yadava sought to accomodate the world process directly within: God's Personality, to make it real, without bringing in an ofganic relation between God on the one hand and matter and souls on the other, to locate changes in these latter to keep God as untainted, as Ramanuja did later on in his own independent system. The result was clumsy and worse than the position in Shankara's advaita, admitting of God as pure in some aspects and impure in others, at the same time ! Yadava had no following ! No one accepted his view ! And yet he dared to impose it on his unassuming pupils, in sheer arrogance, distorting texts and twisting their meanings. He seems to have disliked the idea God with form, particularly as Vishnu, in his Shaiva leanings, and some of his instructions regarding Vedantic texts, describing God's ‘lotus like eyes’ ( the Kapyasa sruti of Chandogya) were deliberately calculated to hurt the feelings of Ramanuja as a devotee !It is necessary to understand that in the Indian tradition, God-Intuition as Experience is not a purely abstract, desicated intellectual affair. (It is only the German Kant, in the West later, who talks of ‘Pure Reason’ and ‘Practical Reason’ with aesthetics hanging in between, without a locus stand like Trishanku !) Shankara had unwillingly injected the 'mischief" into this harmonious hoary tradition, by throwing out aesthetics and to reduce it to a ‘subjectless, objectless state’ of vacuum to approximate to the Buddhists’ experience of the Nihil or ‘Shunya’. Yadava could not grow out of this habit while not happy in it either ! In this state of undigested thought and inexperience in Yogic matters he had the audacity to accept Ramanuja as a pupil ! But soon, being unhappy with the pupil’s outshining brilliance, he had the intelligence to surmise that, left in this way, Ramanuja would soon establish a ‘new’ system (poor Yadava!) and it was desirable to eliminate him for the ‘higher cause’ of saving his own new found system ! He hatched outa plan of pilgrimage tour to Ganga, Kasi and the North, where he wanted to drown the undesirable disciple in the Manikarnika Ghat, so that Ramanuja's intented ‘murder’ would spare himself of the sin of murder, and Ramanuja too would attain salvation ! That was the poor condition of understanding of sriptures by Yadava ! It is another matter that this plot failed, and Ramanuja escaped unhurt, thanks to hints from Govinda. All was now over with Yadava, with that ! Ramanuja was original and sincere in trying to understand the true import of our sacred texts. He would not accept anything in the name of authority, however great otherwise, if it did not satisfay, tests of reason and instincts of deep and inviolable feelings of a primordial nature. He was a seeker of Truth in the strict Upanisadic spirit and tradition, in this way, and his efforts to find a teacher commanding his respect had failed so far His search for a more satisfactory teacher started, the very day he left Yadava's academy. It is natural that Yadava's mean and sadistic instinct of seeking pleasure from distorted meanings of texts aimed at wounding the feeling of sensitive disciples was powerfully rebuffed by the young and rebellious Ramanuja. Perhaps Yadava was slightly elder to Ramanuja then, as we learn from tradition, that he lived on well into oldage to accept Ramanuja's discipleship, and to write. works on his command! The temple of Varada or Devadhiraja at Kanchi Was a great centre of spiritual activity and one or two of Yamuna's great disciples were partaking of temple services there at that juncture. Yamuna himself had visited that shrine some few years before there was a rupture of relations between Ramanuja and Yadava, and was greatly drawn to the demeanour of the young Ramanuja, carrying well-water for temple service. He made inquiries, then and there to know the whereabouts of this broad-shouldered long-armed wide-eyed lad, resembling Lakshmana as pictured by the divine poet of the Ramayana ; and on learning that he was the nephew of his beloved disciple Nanbi, he was highly pleased and cast benevolent glances on this young man, and prayed to the Lord to make him available for the services of spirituality and the service of the holy community, in the interests of the world. But Ramanuja could never meet this great Acharya alive in his life-time, to obtain guidance or instructions from him, which remained his lasting grief. Strange it was that Yamuna too had not heard of Ramanuja before, or vice versa! A stray recitation of a verse from Yamuna's Stotra Rathnam (No.11) extolling the Lord as unique, in whose overlordship of the entire universe, no Vaidika could doubt or disbelieve, and in whose ocean of glory, gods minor, like Brahma and Shiva looked like mere drops - had drawn Ramanuja to Yamuna, also ! That was the first ever time he had heard of Yamuna or of his works, too ! Very strange indeed !! Ramanuja was now married, on his mother's desire, but found it difficult to get on with that good girl who was excellent in all respects excepting in the understanding of the liberal and natural, catholic outlook of her husband ! She was called Tanjam, meaning in Tamil ‘The Lady of protection’, Sri Mahalakshmi, as the supreme refuge of the world. But here again Ramanuja was disappointed as she could not act and live up to the name she bore, with her husband. Ever since he broke away from Yadava,Ramanuja was in search of a satisfying and proper preceptor. He was now instinctively drawn to an elderly pious personality at Kanchipuram of those days. That was Kanchipurna or Tirukkacchi Nambi (whose real name was Devaraja Guru) the disciple of Yamuna at Sri Rangam at one time. We have already drawn the reader's attention to Yamuna's broadmindedness in admitting people to his fold of discipleship all irrespective of their caste, sex and other qualifications. Among his pupils, Maraneri Nambi came from among the so called,‘outcastes', Tirukkacchi Nambi came from a family of shepherds grouped in the Vaishya Varna, hailing from a place near Kanchi called Poondamalli. (His descendants are said to live there still even now, belonging to Shaiva traditions, as earlier.) Nambi was very pious, and of deep spiritual convictions, having been taught all essentials of Visistadvaita and Srivaishnavism by Yamuna. He was doing ‘intimate service’ (antaranga kainkarya) to Lord Varada at Kanchi, daily, in the form of offering ‘fan-service’ (Vyajana Kainkarya), the fan being made of palm leaves. That gave him opportunities of standing very close to the Deity and sometimes engrossed in intimate conversation with Him ! Others had observed it too, and knew that Nambi was a spokesperson of the Lord. Ramanuja respected this pious man very much and was often getting guidance from him as guru. There are many episodes in the life of Ramanuja concerning this personage. One such narrates that young Ramanuja wanted to partake of food left over by Nambi, after inviting him to his house, to purify himself. Nambi did not consent as he belonged to a different social status, and to avoid embarrassment while pleasing the supplicant in a way, he went to Ramanuja's home while he was not there, accepted food, and came to the temple by an alternate route ! Ramanuja who reached home later, found that his wife was cleansing the place where Nambi was seated earlier while accepting food, as she thought that the place was contaminated because of the presence of a man from a ‘low’ Caste ! Such narrowness on her part, on some more similar occasions too, added up to the frustration of Ramanuja in deciding to renounce householdership and to become a Sannyasin to pursue the spiritual and social transformation of society, which was dear to his heart and in which his own wife was not merely non cooperative but also a positive hurdle. The Acharya had all respect for the laws and practice of Varna as a broad arrangement of professional groupings, for the proper run of society avoiding mutual heart burns. But evil practices had crept into it, corroding it with meaningless labellings of high and low, creating lack of harmony, jealousies, and needless rigidities in an otherwise agile and flexible society. The scriptures had declared that God treated all as his children equally andthat for salvation caste, colour, sex and professions wereno bar. Humanism was inherent in Hindu scriptures, intheir basic texts, the Vedas, the Upanisads, the epics andpuranas. But in Law texts, which governed changingsocial behaviour periodically certain rigidities had creptin long before Ramanuja, and for long there was nolawgiver, smritikara, who could clear confusions andconflicts, and direct social progress which was essentialfor spiritual evolution. The Bhakti movement tended tooverlook caste barriers for spiritual purposes. The Alwarshad actually pronounced so, and demonstrated thespiritual equality of man in spite of professional andsocial differences in status. Later on we see Ramanujareconciling the laws of Varna with ideas of spiritualequality, in both SriBhashya and Gita Bhashya. TheAcharya was a unique reformer of the society, fromwithin, without violating true scriptural injunctions, butinterpreting them liberally in their true spirit.It so happened that when he did not know what nextto do, and he asked Nambi to get it clear from LordVarada, Nambi, next day, told Ramanuja that he mustapproach Mahapurna, the chief disciple of Yamuna atSrikangam. Among other doubts that Ramanuja wantedto be cleared and answered, the Lord had instructedthrough Nambi that He was the Supreme object ofknowledge and attainment, that true philosophy consistedin admitting multiplicity as real and reconcilable withunity, that surrender of one's all to Him was the surestmeans of happiness and salvation here and beyond, andthat for a prapanna, a refugee at God's doors, there was1049no compulsion that he must think of God with any selfefforts in the last moments of life and so on. This was toremain the basic plank of Ramanuja's thought systemlater on.Ramanuja thus obtained in a nutshell all theessentials of Vishistadvaita, and the very spirit ofSrivaishnavism as propagated by Yamuna, through hismost illustrious disciple ! That was initiation in a way andthe confusions caused by Yadava earlier in his mind cameto an end once for all. From then on Ramanuja neverlooked back ! He was proceeding to Sri Rangam on footwhile Mahapurna was on his way to Kanchi to bringRamanuja under the express orders of Yamuna on hisdeath-bed !...... strange ! ..... The two met atMadhurantakum Sri Rama Temple where for the firsttime, Purna gave him the ‘five fold’ initiation to accepthim formally into the Srivaishnava fold.The two hurried towards Sri Rangam to reach it inafew more days. But disappointment awaited Ramanujathere ! Yamuna had aheady passed away and the lastceremonies were commenced on the banks of Kaveri!Who can describe Ramanuja's sorrow that he was so nearhis guru, after all his keen search and trying travails, andyet so fer ? A stunned Ramanuja by this strange andironical circumstance, observed by chance that threefingers on one hand of the deceased Yamuna were still ina folded gesture, as he was perhaps counting something inhis last moments. Inquiry revealed that the grand sire hadthree unfulfilled ambitions of : (i) not having been able to1150write a fresh and exhaustive commentury on the BrahmaSutras, (ii) not having been able to create suitablememorials for Vyasa and Parashara who had laid thefoundation of our tradition and (iii) not having been ableto write a befitting commentary any on Nammalwar'sgreatest work Tiruvaymoli. Ramanuja is reported to havepromised undertaking of all the three, before thatcongregation, and the fingers unfolding themselves,miraculously as it were, to indicate that the departedmaster now had an easy conscience, and an unburdenedheart. This brings one aspect of Ramanuja's life to aclose, the search for a guru, the drive for a mission, andthe tireless search for lasting values and truth throughscriptures, through untwisted and non-arbitraryinterpretations. The rest of the details in this period of thelife of the Acharya are all of the nature of a groping anda grand preparation by an incessant trial-and-errormethod! There was nothing of value he could learn fromYadava; what little he learnt was only about the perversityof approaches that prevailed then, giving him a goodgrounding of Prima-facie views which he could later on,answer, to silence the opponents effectively.Kanchipurna had put him on solid grounds of conviction.Ramanuja had renounced all worldly pleasures by now, sothat there were no more obstacles on his part, of pursuitof God and means to attain Him, which he was to proclaimto the rest of the world hereafter.Yamuna passed away in A.D. 1042 at the age of 66,when Ramanuja was farely 25 years of age. Dates arevery important hereafter in our account to fix broad1251countours of his next land marks of achievements and hisjourney to Karnataka and stay here.Many bright and trust worthy disciples of Yamunawere there still to guide Ramanuja (1) Mahapurnainstructed him in the import of the Upanisads, the Sutrasand the Gita as per Yamuna’s lines of interpretation. Thatwas a step nearer to Yamuna’s heart ! (2) The Areyar of SriRangam (also son of Yamuna) taught him the recitationstyle of the works of the Alwars, orally. (3) Maladharataught him the imports of Tiruvaymoli in all theirintricacies. (4) Ramanuja's maternal uncle, Nambi ofTirumalai, taught him the esoteric treasures of theRamayana (5) Only one pupil of Yamuna, Nambi ofTirukkottiyur dodged him for long in giving to him thetreasured secrets of the Three Holy Manthras theAshtakshara, the Dwaya, and the Charama Sloka ! Thatwas because eligibility tests for a disciple were so severein those days, that few passed those austerity conditions 1!These meanings were being passed on throughgenerations in such a peculiar way that a teacher who hadinherited it from his teacher would pass it on to only onedeserving pupil of his, by a chain. It is tradition restrictedto a single line of teachers and taught, where by it wasattempted to preserve heredity while even those intradition at large failed to benefit from it. ‘Nambi’ neverquestioned the strangeness of this method of inheritance,as his predecessors too had followed the same procedure!How Ramanuja obtained these treasures from thisunwilling master is a strange but revealing, story in itself:Ramanuja had to approach him some 18 times in1352succession, each time being denied it, on some pretext inwhich there was always a hidden test for him. Nambiwould ask everytime on hearing a knock on his doors :“Who is it ?” On hearing Ramanuja reply outside thedoors, “It is myself sir !”, Nambi would counter reply :“You can come when ‘J’ am no more !” Ramanuja wouldreturn in disappointment, unable to grasp the meaning ofthe master's tactics. Then gradually he began to think of itseriously to understand that the master had wanted him tocome when the pupil's ‘I’-his ego-had completely beeneliminated. The next and last, therefore, was a visit of joyand self-confidence, and to Nambi's quiry as usual,Ramanuja avoided introducing himself as an unqualifiedegoist, but as a qualified servant of God and the Godly!! The test was now passed ; but more hurdles awaited :Nambi received him in and agreed to give him the desiredsecrets on condition that he came absolutely ‘alone’ toreceive them on an appointed day and time at theSoumyanarayana temple of the place.Ramanuja had already been joined by a good numberof worthy disciples by then, and among them wereKuresa, Andan, Achan (known as Srivatsa chihna Misra,Dasharathi, Pranatarthihara, respectively) and ofcourse Embar, his cousin, of the poorvashrama. On theappointed day at the mentioned hour, Ramanujaapproached the master, seemingly alone, but withKuresha and Dasharathi stationed slightly behind him ina dark corner, near the Narasimha shrine at the foot of awinding stair leading to two other tiers of the temple andto its tower (called Ashtanga Yoga Vimanam). Nambi1453instructed him this time in detailed discourse but foundout the transgression of the pupil when he noticed theother too, later on. Ramanuja pacified the master byarguing that he had come in reality alone, only, as heconsidered these two as his sandals and Holy Staff withoutwhich a mendicant could not move or be seen by others !Nambi who followed tradition had no answer, and sopermitted it. The same evening Ramanuja gave away theesoteric teachings to more people who begged of him,then and there on the temple tower. On hearing this, themaster frowned and yelled. “You will go to Hell fortransgressing my orders of secrecy after promising it andnow for violating it blatantly”. A happy Ramanuja is saidto have quipped back : “Well sire ! I am willing to standcondemned to Hell, if so many pious people who havebenefitted from this teaching of yours shall pass on to theworld of God, as you have blessedly confided to me !A stunned Nambi is said to have embraced hisrevolutionary pupil and called him “Emberumanar !” (“Youare my lord indeed’) and realised the broadminded natureof Ramanuja in contrast to his meaninglessconservatism.Thus Ramanuja got fully equipped to succeed to theseat of Yamuna by obtaining discipline and direction frommost pupils of that Acharya, including Kanchipurna atKanchi to start with. How long all this instruction took, isnot specified in traditional accounts; meanwhileRamanuja's disciples were swelling in number. We maysurmise that this would have taken ten to twenty years atmost.1554There seem to be two early visits or the Acharya tothe north, to Kashmir and other northern pilgrim centres,before Ramanuja was 60 - one to obtain the BodhayanaVritti, the lengthy commentary by Bodhayana on theritualistic and Vedantic aspects of Sutras by Jaimini andVyasa, from Kashmir, as it was not available anywhereelse, and the other to win scholars’ approval and theblessings of the Goddess of learning at Kashmir SaradaPitham, and to advocate the right traditions, lost so far, aslinks with the spiritual past. These too have to be placedin the period when the Acharya was not yet sixty of age,as at 60, he was already an exile, seeking refuge inKarnataka, as evidences show.What route the Acharya took is not also wellpreserved by tradition. A stray verse says :श्रीरनें करिशैलमश्वनगिरिं ता्ष्याद्रिसिंहाचलौ ।श्रीकूर्म पुरुषोत्तमं च बदरीनारायणं नैमिष IIश्रीमदूद्वारावतीप्रयाग मधुराउयो ध्यागया: पुष्करें ।सालग्रामगिरिं निषेव्य रमते रामानुजोझयं मुनिः IIThe route according to this would be, Srirangam,Kanchi, Tirumala Hills, Ahobilam, Simhachalam, SriKurmam, Puri on the east, and the Badari in the extremenorth, then Naimisharanyam in west, then again Prayagin the north, and Dwaraka, in the west, Madhura, Gaya,all again in the north, then again Pushkar in the west, thenfinally Salagramam in the extreme north in Nepal. This,perhaps, is a mere list of places fitted into versification,without faithfulness to details of exact route. Again, thismust have been the second pilgrimage route being so1655leisurely. There is a great difficulty in accepting this as theexact route, even otherwise. In those days of no bridgesfor the mighty rivers on the way, and other journey-risks,no one would travel normally on the east coast all the wayto the north, where rivers are wider generally beforejoining the sea. There must have been a shorter route forall Acharyas and pilgrims going north, avoiding theseriver basins in the East. Ramanuja must have travelled viaKarnataka (where there were already Srivaishnavas andshrines, as mentioned earlier) and Phandarpur, a re-nowned place of pilgrimage on the way. We cannot fix theexact route even on this assumption. How many timesRamanuja might have visited Karnataka earlier alsocannot be ascertained. At least in the southern part of thejourney the Acharya is likely to have made use of placeswell known to him either directly or by earlier tradition ashalt points. Phandarpur, Nasik Panchavati, Pushkar,Dwaraka, Mathura, etc., etc... must have been theWestern route. In the first, perhaps, whirlwind-journey,his aim was to secure a copy of the Bodhayana Vritti, andonce he secured it at Kashmir, the Acharya must havehurried back to compose the Sri Bhashyam ; and in thesubsequent journey only, he must have tried to win overscholars all over India, of even other persuasions to hisviews, and hence this second one must be the one aimedat ‘winning all quarters’ - Digvijaya.On the first tour one important event is recorded intraditon. The Kashmir King is reported to have welcomedRamanuja, shown his library of manuscripts, and allowedhim to make use of the desired text of which there was17=only one copy. It was known as Kritakoti, in perhaps twosenses (a) of being a work in millions of words, veryextensive, naturally because it covered both sciences ofRituals and Intuitions, and (b) of being a work in which thedesired position (called Koti in logic) being wellestablished (Kritha) as unassaible. Ramanuja must haverealised that it would take years to Copy it, with palmleaves not being available there, and not liking the idea ofwasting time over this mere mechanincal copying.Ramanuja was also not so much interested in the formerpart of Ritualism. But the King was unwilling to give thetext away to Ramanuja, as his library would be poorer bythat one unique text, though it was not important to him orindispensable either. How long the Acharya stayed atKashmir, also is not known. But it must be long enoughfor his disciple Kuresha to memorise the whole of it, orat least those most valuable or crucial parts, without whicha new commentary could not be undertaken ! Tradition hastwo additional details of elements in this episode ! (i) thatit was a moth-eaten manuscript, and (ii) that Ramanujatook it away by force or presuming that it was a gift untohim, but that the King sent his men to recover it forcibly.We cannot ascertain these.Anyway, Ramanuja must have completed hismasterpiece on his return soon, and how long it took isalso not known. Kuresha was his scribe, taking down notpassively, without understanding the implications of thedictated text, but discerningly, with full discrimination toquestion, discuss, slow down, and to draw the master intogreater subleties, at crucial steps. Examples of these have18drt Ramanuja, Melukote and Sri Vaishnavism 57been preserved, as for instance at ‘‘Htsq wa’ (II-3-4)where the chief distinguishing characteristic of theIndividual Self is discussed. “Being a mere consciententity” is not enough of the real distinction at all, as itapplies to God too. The real distinction is of being totally,inalienably, subservient to God, Seshatva. But Ramanujacould not complete it with Kuresha as a scribe, in onestrech, some say ; and that when Kuresha was blinded byShaiva fanatics, and the work was halted inevitably,Vishnu Chitta, the other disciple, took it down, so as tomake Ramanuja claim him as another version ofKuresha, as Engal Alwan. If this version is true it wouldmean that Ramanuja composed most of his work beforehe left for Karnataka as an exile, and the rest wascompleted at Melukote, after 1098 A.D. One greatdifficulty with this version 1s, that in this case,Ramanuja's journey to win over others, to the north, thesecond journey, would have to be when the Acharya wasmore than 80 years of age, and then there would need tobe one more tour to recover the processional Deity ofSelva Pillai from somewhere in the north, with sufficienttime gap in between . That would lead us to inferences thatthe Acharya was nearing a hundred years of age when heundertook this third one which is very unlikely, as he hadreturned to Sri Rangam before the year 1118 or 1120A.D. What therefore, would be sensible to draw asconclusion and to reconcile is as follows : Sri Bhasyamwas completed before the Acharya left Sri Rangam,before he was sixty years of age, with Kuresha and Vishnuchitta as alternate scribes, this latter being as good as the1958former, also more close, and an equally tested prodigy, bymemory. After completing this great work, the Acharyamust have toured extensively all over the country tospread the right views of the Sastras to establish the rightinterpretation of Upanishads and the Gita.The second unfulfilled ambition of Yamuna wasfulfilled when the Acharya got a commentary written onNammalawar's Tiruvaymoli by Pillan in ‘6000’ words, inmani paravala style - i.e., ‘hightly Sanskritised Tamil’,looking like a garland with ' pearls and corals’ strungtogether. The third wish got realised when the twins bornof Kuresha were named after Parashara and Vyasa.

Sri Ramanujacharya (Samskrit : रामानुजाचार्यः) belonging to the 11th century, was instrumental in the establishment of the doctrines pertaining to Visishtadvaita (the philosophical tenets) and its practical mode of realization of Brahman through Sri Vaishnavism. Sri Ramanuja's tradition has a long history before him including a grand lineage of teachers, the Alwars who composed prabandhas, authoritative works and esoteric concepts passed on by oral tradition.  

 

Sri Ramanuja was born on Thursday 4th April 1017 A.D. (Pingala Chaitra Sukla Panchami) in the star of Arudra corresponding to Saka year 939, and Kali year 4118. His father was Aasuri Keshavacharya, who was a Somayaji. His mother, Bhudevi, was the sister of Periya Tirumalai Nambi, a disciple of Yamuna (of ascetic order). Sri Ramanuja's birth place is Sri Perumbudur, about 40 miles away from modern Madras, Chennai, near Kanchipuram, a hollowed pilgrim centre of pauranic fame.

 

It was his uncle Nambi who on seeing the child Ramanuja (रामस्य अनुजः । younger brother of Sri Rama), named him so, as he had features said to have been possessed by Lakshmana in the Ramayana. The child grew up well, was given initiation at the right age, and was taught basic grounds of education by the father himself. The family belonged to the Vadama group, devoted to Vishnu deeply, perhaps, in the mature Bhagavatha tradition.<ref>Narayanacharya, K. S. (2005) ''Sri Ramanujacharya, Melkote and Srivaishnavism.'' Hubli : Sahitya Prakashana</ref> The other sister of Nambi by name Sridevi to whom was born Govinda Bhattar, is a cousin brother of Ramanuja, who later came to be known as Embar on passing into the ascetic order.

 

Ramanuja learnt the Vedas, Vedangas, and shastras under the tutelage of his own father, in his own native place, while quite young. But higher education in terms of being initiated into the mysteries of the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras and Bhagavad Gita could not be pursued at home, as he lost his father at that stage. Ramanuja received the Srivaishnava five fold initiation, into proper SriVaishnavism, in the later years of age (18th or 20th year of age) from Periya Nambi or (Mahapurna), another illustrious disciple of Yamuna at Madurantakam.

 

He learnt the four thousand Divyaprabandhas of the Alwars, only after he was installed on the seat of Yamuna as a Yati (a monk), from other teachers hailing in the lineage of Yamuna.  

 

As he grew older Ramanuja approached Yadava Prakasha, a scholar at Kancheepuram itself and begun to be taught about the Upanishads and higher Vedanta concepts. But soon the two did not get on for long, as there were clashes of views, interpretations and grasps of divine intuitions preserved in the Upanishads. Ramanuja being a born genius and Yadava being unhappy with the pupil’s outshining brilliance, he had the intelligence to surmise that, left in this way, Ramanuja would soon establish a ‘new’ system and it was imperative that Ramanuja had to be eliminated for the ‘higher cause’ of saving his own new found system! He hatched out a plan of pilgrimage tour to Ganga, Kashi and the North, where he wanted to drown the undesirable disciple in the Manikarnika Ghat, so that Ramanuja's intended ‘murder’ would spare himself of the sin of murder, and Ramanuja too would attain salvation! But this plot failed, and Ramanuja escaped unhurt due to the help from Govinda a fellow student.

 

Ramanuja was original and sincere in trying to understand the true import of our sacred texts. He would not accept anything in the name of authority, however great otherwise, if it did not satisfy, tests of reason and instincts of deep and inviolable feelings of a primordial nature. He was a seeker of Truth in the strict Upanisadic spirit and tradition, in this way, and his efforts to find a teacher commanding his respect had failed so far.

 

Ramanuja was then married, on his mother's desire, but found it difficult to get on with his wife, Sri Mahalakshmi, who was excellent in all respects excepting in the understanding of the liberal and natural outlook of her husband. Ever since he broke away from Yadava, Ramanuja was in search of a satisfying and proper preceptor.

 

The temple of Varadaraja at Kanchi was a great centre of spiritual activity and one or two of Yamuna's great disciples were partaking of temple services there at that juncture. He was now instinctively drawn to an elderly pious personality Kanchipurna or Tirukkacchi Nambi (whose real name was Devaraja Guru) the disciple of Yamuna at Sri Rangam at one time. Nambi was very pious, and of deep spiritual convictions, having been taught all essentials of Visistadvaita and Srivaishnavism by Yamuna.

 

Many occasions both at home and outside added up to the frustration of Ramanuja in deciding to renounce householdership and to become a Sannyasin to pursue the spiritual and social transformation of society. Working for the good of the society was dear to his heart in which his own wife was not merely non cooperative but also a positive hurdle. The Acharya had all respect for the laws and practice of Varna as a broad arrangement of professional groupings, for the proper run of society avoiding mutual heart burns. But evil practices had crept into it, corroding it with meaningless labels of high and low, creating lack of harmony, jealousies, and needless rigidities in an otherwise agile and flexible society.

 

The scriptures had declared that all were to be equally and that for Moksha, varna, colour, sex and professions were no bar. Humanism was inherent in Hindu scriptures, in their basic texts, the Vedas, the Upanisads, the epics and Puranas.  However, he felt that in the Smrtigranthas or the Dharmashastras, which governed the changing social behaviour periodically, certain rigidities had crept in. For a long time there was no lawgiver, smritikara, who could clear confusions and conflicts, and direct social progress which was essential for spiritual evolution. The Bhakti movement tended to overlook Varna barriers for spiritual purposes. The Alwars had actually pronounced so, and demonstrated the spiritual equality of man in spite of professional and social differences in status.  

 

Later on we see Ramanujareconciling the laws of Varna with ideas of spiritualequality, in both SriBhashya and Gita Bhashya. TheAcharya was a unique reformer of the society, fromwithin, without violating true scriptural injunctions, butinterpreting them liberally in their true spirit.It so happened that when he did not know what nextto do, and he asked Nambi to get it clear from LordVarada, Nambi, next day, told Ramanuja that he mustapproach Mahapurna, the chief disciple of Yamuna atSrikangam. Among other doubts that Ramanuja wantedto be cleared and answered, the Lord had instructedthrough Nambi that He was the Supreme object ofknowledge and attainment, that true philosophy consistedin admitting multiplicity as real and reconcilable withunity, that surrender of one's all to Him was the surestmeans of happiness and salvation here and beyond, andthat for a prapanna, a refugee at God's doors, there was1049no compulsion that he must think of God with any selfefforts in the last moments of life and so on. This was toremain the basic plank of Ramanuja's thought systemlater on.Ramanuja thus obtained in a nutshell all theessentials of Vishistadvaita, and the very spirit ofSrivaishnavism as propagated by Yamuna, through hismost illustrious disciple ! That was initiation in a way andthe confusions caused by Yadava earlier in his mind cameto an end once for all. From then on Ramanuja neverlooked back ! He was proceeding to Sri Rangam on footwhile Mahapurna was on his way to Kanchi to bringRamanuja under the express orders of Yamuna on hisdeath-bed !...... strange ! ..... The two met atMadhurantakum Sri Rama Temple where for the firsttime, Purna gave him the ‘five fold’ initiation to accepthim formally into the Srivaishnava fold.The two hurried towards Sri Rangam to reach it inafew more days. But disappointment awaited Ramanujathere ! Yamuna had aheady passed away and the lastceremonies were commenced on the banks of Kaveri!Who can describe Ramanuja's sorrow that he was so nearhis guru, after all his keen search and trying travails, andyet so fer ? A stunned Ramanuja by this strange andironical circumstance, observed by chance that threefingers on one hand of the deceased Yamuna were still ina folded gesture, as he was perhaps counting something inhis last moments. Inquiry revealed that the grand sire hadthree unfulfilled ambitions of : (i) not having been able to1150write a fresh and exhaustive commentury on the BrahmaSutras, (ii) not having been able to create suitablememorials for Vyasa and Parashara who had laid thefoundation of our tradition and (iii) not having been ableto write a befitting commentary any on Nammalwar'sgreatest work Tiruvaymoli. Ramanuja is reported to havepromised undertaking of all the three, before thatcongregation, and the fingers unfolding themselves,miraculously as it were, to indicate that the departedmaster now had an easy conscience, and an unburdenedheart. This brings one aspect of Ramanuja's life to aclose, the search for a guru, the drive for a mission, andthe tireless search for lasting values and truth throughscriptures, through untwisted and non-arbitraryinterpretations. The rest of the details in this period of thelife of the Acharya are all of the nature of a groping anda grand preparation by an incessant trial-and-errormethod! There was nothing of value he could learn fromYadava; what little he learnt was only about the perversityof approaches that prevailed then, giving him a goodgrounding of Prima-facie views which he could later on,answer, to silence the opponents effectively.Kanchipurna had put him on solid grounds of conviction.Ramanuja had renounced all worldly pleasures by now, sothat there were no more obstacles on his part, of pursuitof God and means to attain Him, which he was to proclaimto the rest of the world hereafter.Yamuna passed away in A.D. 1042 at the age of 66,when Ramanuja was farely 25 years of age. Dates arevery important hereafter in our account to fix broad1251countours of his next land marks of achievements and hisjourney to Karnataka and stay here.Many bright and trust worthy disciples of Yamunawere there still to guide Ramanuja (1) Mahapurnainstructed him in the import of the Upanisads, the Sutrasand the Gita as per Yamuna’s lines of interpretation. Thatwas a step nearer to Yamuna’s heart ! (2) The Areyar of SriRangam (also son of Yamuna) taught him the recitationstyle of the works of the Alwars, orally. (3) Maladharataught him the imports of Tiruvaymoli in all theirintricacies. (4) Ramanuja's maternal uncle, Nambi ofTirumalai, taught him the esoteric treasures of theRamayana (5) Only one pupil of Yamuna, Nambi ofTirukkottiyur dodged him for long in giving to him thetreasured secrets of the Three Holy Manthras theAshtakshara, the Dwaya, and the Charama Sloka ! Thatwas because eligibility tests for a disciple were so severein those days, that few passed those austerity conditions 1!These meanings were being passed on throughgenerations in such a peculiar way that a teacher who hadinherited it from his teacher would pass it on to only onedeserving pupil of his, by a chain. It is tradition restrictedto a single line of teachers and taught, where by it wasattempted to preserve heredity while even those intradition at large failed to benefit from it. ‘Nambi’ neverquestioned the strangeness of this method of inheritance,as his predecessors too had followed the same procedure!How Ramanuja obtained these treasures from thisunwilling master is a strange but revealing, story in itself:Ramanuja had to approach him some 18 times in1352succession, each time being denied it, on some pretext inwhich there was always a hidden test for him. Nambiwould ask everytime on hearing a knock on his doors :“Who is it ?” On hearing Ramanuja reply outside thedoors, “It is myself sir !”, Nambi would counter reply :“You can come when ‘J’ am no more !” Ramanuja wouldreturn in disappointment, unable to grasp the meaning ofthe master's tactics. Then gradually he began to think of itseriously to understand that the master had wanted him tocome when the pupil's ‘I’-his ego-had completely beeneliminated. The next and last, therefore, was a visit of joyand self-confidence, and to Nambi's quiry as usual,Ramanuja avoided introducing himself as an unqualifiedegoist, but as a qualified servant of God and the Godly!! The test was now passed ; but more hurdles awaited :Nambi received him in and agreed to give him the desiredsecrets on condition that he came absolutely ‘alone’ toreceive them on an appointed day and time at theSoumyanarayana temple of the place.Ramanuja had already been joined by a good numberof worthy disciples by then, and among them wereKuresa, Andan, Achan (known as Srivatsa chihna Misra,Dasharathi, Pranatarthihara, respectively) and ofcourse Embar, his cousin, of the poorvashrama. On theappointed day at the mentioned hour, Ramanujaapproached the master, seemingly alone, but withKuresha and Dasharathi stationed slightly behind him ina dark corner, near the Narasimha shrine at the foot of awinding stair leading to two other tiers of the temple andto its tower (called Ashtanga Yoga Vimanam). Nambi1453instructed him this time in detailed discourse but foundout the transgression of the pupil when he noticed theother too, later on. Ramanuja pacified the master byarguing that he had come in reality alone, only, as heconsidered these two as his sandals and Holy Staff withoutwhich a mendicant could not move or be seen by others !Nambi who followed tradition had no answer, and sopermitted it. The same evening Ramanuja gave away theesoteric teachings to more people who begged of him,then and there on the temple tower. On hearing this, themaster frowned and yelled. “You will go to Hell fortransgressing my orders of secrecy after promising it andnow for violating it blatantly”. A happy Ramanuja is saidto have quipped back : “Well sire ! I am willing to standcondemned to Hell, if so many pious people who havebenefitted from this teaching of yours shall pass on to theworld of God, as you have blessedly confided to me !A stunned Nambi is said to have embraced hisrevolutionary pupil and called him “Emberumanar !” (“Youare my lord indeed’) and realised the broadminded natureof Ramanuja in contrast to his meaninglessconservatism.Thus Ramanuja got fully equipped to succeed to theseat of Yamuna by obtaining discipline and direction frommost pupils of that Acharya, including Kanchipurna atKanchi to start with. How long all this instruction took, isnot specified in traditional accounts; meanwhileRamanuja's disciples were swelling in number. We maysurmise that this would have taken ten to twenty years atmost.1554There seem to be two early visits or the Acharya tothe north, to Kashmir and other northern pilgrim centres,before Ramanuja was 60 - one to obtain the BodhayanaVritti, the lengthy commentary by Bodhayana on theritualistic and Vedantic aspects of Sutras by Jaimini andVyasa, from Kashmir, as it was not available anywhereelse, and the other to win scholars’ approval and theblessings of the Goddess of learning at Kashmir SaradaPitham, and to advocate the right traditions, lost so far, aslinks with the spiritual past. These too have to be placedin the period when the Acharya was not yet sixty of age,as at 60, he was already an exile, seeking refuge inKarnataka, as evidences show.What route the Acharya took is not also wellpreserved by tradition. A stray verse says :श्रीरनें करिशैलमश्वनगिरिं ता्ष्याद्रिसिंहाचलौ ।श्रीकूर्म पुरुषोत्तमं च बदरीनारायणं नैमिष IIश्रीमदूद्वारावतीप्रयाग मधुराउयो ध्यागया: पुष्करें ।सालग्रामगिरिं निषेव्य रमते रामानुजोझयं मुनिः IIThe route according to this would be, Srirangam,Kanchi, Tirumala Hills, Ahobilam, Simhachalam, SriKurmam, Puri on the east, and the Badari in the extremenorth, then Naimisharanyam in west, then again Prayagin the north, and Dwaraka, in the west, Madhura, Gaya,all again in the north, then again Pushkar in the west, thenfinally Salagramam in the extreme north in Nepal. This,perhaps, is a mere list of places fitted into versification,without faithfulness to details of exact route. Again, thismust have been the second pilgrimage route being so1655leisurely. There is a great difficulty in accepting this as theexact route, even otherwise. In those days of no bridgesfor the mighty rivers on the way, and other journey-risks,no one would travel normally on the east coast all the wayto the north, where rivers are wider generally beforejoining the sea. There must have been a shorter route forall Acharyas and pilgrims going north, avoiding theseriver basins in the East. Ramanuja must have travelled viaKarnataka (where there were already Srivaishnavas andshrines, as mentioned earlier) and Phandarpur, a re-nowned place of pilgrimage on the way. We cannot fix theexact route even on this assumption. How many timesRamanuja might have visited Karnataka earlier alsocannot be ascertained. At least in the southern part of thejourney the Acharya is likely to have made use of placeswell known to him either directly or by earlier tradition ashalt points. Phandarpur, Nasik Panchavati, Pushkar,Dwaraka, Mathura, etc., etc... must have been theWestern route. In the first, perhaps, whirlwind-journey,his aim was to secure a copy of the Bodhayana Vritti, andonce he secured it at Kashmir, the Acharya must havehurried back to compose the Sri Bhashyam ; and in thesubsequent journey only, he must have tried to win overscholars all over India, of even other persuasions to hisviews, and hence this second one must be the one aimedat ‘winning all quarters’ - Digvijaya.On the first tour one important event is recorded intraditon. The Kashmir King is reported to have welcomedRamanuja, shown his library of manuscripts, and allowedhim to make use of the desired text of which there was17=only one copy. It was known as Kritakoti, in perhaps twosenses (a) of being a work in millions of words, veryextensive, naturally because it covered both sciences ofRituals and Intuitions, and (b) of being a work in which thedesired position (called Koti in logic) being wellestablished (Kritha) as unassaible. Ramanuja must haverealised that it would take years to Copy it, with palmleaves not being available there, and not liking the idea ofwasting time over this mere mechanincal copying.Ramanuja was also not so much interested in the formerpart of Ritualism. But the King was unwilling to give thetext away to Ramanuja, as his library would be poorer bythat one unique text, though it was not important to him orindispensable either. How long the Acharya stayed atKashmir, also is not known. But it must be long enoughfor his disciple Kuresha to memorise the whole of it, orat least those most valuable or crucial parts, without whicha new commentary could not be undertaken ! Tradition hastwo additional details of elements in this episode ! (i) thatit was a moth-eaten manuscript, and (ii) that Ramanujatook it away by force or presuming that it was a gift untohim, but that the King sent his men to recover it forcibly.We cannot ascertain these.Anyway, Ramanuja must have completed hismasterpiece on his return soon, and how long it took isalso not known. Kuresha was his scribe, taking down notpassively, without understanding the implications of thedictated text, but discerningly, with full discrimination toquestion, discuss, slow down, and to draw the master intogreater subleties, at crucial steps. Examples of these have18drt Ramanuja, Melukote and Sri Vaishnavism 57been preserved, as for instance at ‘‘Htsq wa’ (II-3-4)where the chief distinguishing characteristic of theIndividual Self is discussed. “Being a mere consciententity” is not enough of the real distinction at all, as itapplies to God too. The real distinction is of being totally,inalienably, subservient to God, Seshatva. But Ramanujacould not complete it with Kuresha as a scribe, in onestrech, some say ; and that when Kuresha was blinded byShaiva fanatics, and the work was halted inevitably,Vishnu Chitta, the other disciple, took it down, so as tomake Ramanuja claim him as another version ofKuresha, as Engal Alwan. If this version is true it wouldmean that Ramanuja composed most of his work beforehe left for Karnataka as an exile, and the rest wascompleted at Melukote, after 1098 A.D. One greatdifficulty with this version 1s, that in this case,Ramanuja's journey to win over others, to the north, thesecond journey, would have to be when the Acharya wasmore than 80 years of age, and then there would need tobe one more tour to recover the processional Deity ofSelva Pillai from somewhere in the north, with sufficienttime gap in between . That would lead us to inferences thatthe Acharya was nearing a hundred years of age when heundertook this third one which is very unlikely, as he hadreturned to Sri Rangam before the year 1118 or 1120A.D. What therefore, would be sensible to draw asconclusion and to reconcile is as follows : Sri Bhasyamwas completed before the Acharya left Sri Rangam,before he was sixty years of age, with Kuresha and Vishnuchitta as alternate scribes, this latter being as good as the1958former, also more close, and an equally tested prodigy, bymemory. After completing this great work, the Acharyamust have toured extensively all over the country tospread the right views of the Sastras to establish the rightinterpretation of Upanishads and the Gita.The second unfulfilled ambition of Yamuna wasfulfilled when the Acharya got a commentary written onNammalawar's Tiruvaymoli by Pillan in ‘6000’ words, inmani paravala style - i.e., ‘hightly Sanskritised Tamil’,looking like a garland with ' pearls and corals’ strungtogether. The third wish got realised when the twins bornof Kuresha were named after Parashara and Vyasa.

में मे. नं2059AT KARNATAKA

में मे. नं2059AT KARNATAKA