Shri Ramanujacharya

Ramanuja ([ɾaːmaːnudʑɐ]; Middle Tamil: Rāmāṉujam; Classical Sanskrit: Rāmānuja; c. 1077 – 1157), also known as Rāmānujācārya, was an Indian Hindu philosopher, guru and social reformer. He is one of the most important exponents of the Sri Vaishnavism tradition in Hinduism. His philosophical foundations for devotional practice were influential in the Bhakti movement.

Ramanuja's guru was Yādava Prakāśa, a scholar who, traditionally, is said to have belonged to the Advaita Vedānta tradition, but probably was a Bhedabheda scholar. Sri Vaishnava tradition holds that Ramanuja disagreed with his guru and the non-dualistic Advaita Vedānta, and instead followed in the footsteps of Tamil Alvārs tradition, the scholars Nāthamuni and Yamunāchārya. Ramanuja is famous as the chief proponent of Vishishtadvaita school of Vedānta, and his disciples were likely authors of texts such as the Shatyayaniya Upanishad. Ramanuja himself wrote influential texts, such as Sanskrit bhāsyas on the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita.

His Vishishtadvaita (qualified non-dualism) philosophy has competed with the Dvaita (theistic dualism) philosophy of Madhvāchārya, and Advaita (non-dualism) philosophy of Ādi Shankara, together the three most influential Vedantic philosophies of the 2nd millennium. Ramanuja presented the epistemic and soteriological importance of bhakti, or the devotion to a personal God (Vishnu in Ramanuja's case) as a means to spiritual liberation. His ontology affirms an inseperable relationship (apṛthak-siddhi) between īśvara (Brahman/Vishnu), cit (individual conscious souls), and acit (insentient matter). In Ramanuja's doctrine of salvation, individual self retains its distinct existence and agency in liberation (moksha), while realizing communion with Brahman through eternal devotional service (kaiṅkarya) as opposed to ontological identity.