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Ramanuja was a Vedanta philosopher born in Tamil Nadu in 1017 CE. Although during his youth he studied Advaita Vedanta under the monist teacher Yadava-prakasa, he disagreed with his teacher and went on to propagate Visisthadvaita philosophy.
Ramanuja’s Visisthadvaita (qualified non-dualism) states that the world and Brahman are united, like a soul and a body. Ramanuja’s philosophy differed to Sankara's because he acknowledged the existence of differences, and believed that the identity of an object as a part was as important as the unity of the whole. The theology espoused by Ramanuja posits that Brahman is not devoid of attributes but is expressed as personal as opposed to impersonal.
Sankara believed that all qualities or manifestations that can be perceived are unreal and temporary and stem from ignorance. However, according to Ramanuja, qualities are real and permanent and under the control of Brahman. Brahman can be one despite the existence of attributes, because they cannot exist alone; they are not independent entities. They are prakaras or the modes, Sesha or the accessories, and Niyama or the controlled aspects, of the one Brahman.
In Sri Ramanuja’s Visisthadvaita philosophy, Isvara has two inseparable prakaras viz., the world and the jivas. These are related to him as the body is related to the soul. They have no existence apart from him. They inhere in Him as attributes in a substance. Matter and jivas constitute the body of Isvara. Isvara is their indweller. He is the controlling reality. Matter and jivas are the subordinate elements. They are termed visesanas, or attributes. Isvara is the visesya or that which is qualified.
Ramanuja opines that the followers of Sankara are wrong when they state that understanding the philosophy of the Upanisads without knowing and practicing dharma can result in knowledge of Brahman. The knowledge that leads to Brahman that ends spiritual ignorance is meditational, not (as Advaitins seem to presume) testimonial or verbal.
In contrast to Sankara, Ramanuja holds that there is no knowledge source in support of the claim that there is a distinctionless (homogeneous) Brahman. All knowledge sources reveal objects as distinct from other objects. All experience reveals an object known in some way or other beyond mere existence. Testimony depends on the operation of distinct sentence parts (words with distinct meanings). Thus the claim that testimony makes known that reality is distinctionless is contradicted by the very nature of testimony as a knowledge means. Even the simplest perceptual cognition reveals something as qualified by something else. Inference depends on perception and makes the same distinct things known as does perception.
Against the Advaita contention that perception cannot make known distinctness but only homogeneous being since distinctness cannot be defined, well, sorry, perception makes known generic characters (cowhood and the like) that differentiate things. If what you Advaitins say were true, why should not a person looking for a horse be satisfied with a buffalo? Remembering could not be distinguished from perceiving, because there would be only the one object (being). And no one would be deaf or blind. Furthermore, Brahman would be an object of perception and the other sources (prameya).
He also holds that the Advaitin argument about prior absences and no prior absence of consciousness is wrong. Similarly the Advaitin understanding of avidya (ignorance), which is the absence of spiritual knowledge, is incorrect. “If the distinction between spiritual knowledge and spiritual ignorance is unreal, then spiritual ignorance and the self are one.”
Ramanuja picks out what he sees as seven fundamental flaws in the Advaita philosophy for special attack: he sees them as so fundamental to the Advaita position that if he is right in identifying them as involving doctrinal contradictions, then Sankara's entire system collapses. He argues:
I. The nature of avidya. Avidya must be either real or unreal; there is no other possibility. But neither of these is possible. If avidya is real, non-dualism collapses into dualism. If it is unreal, we are driven to self-contradiction or infinite regress.
II. The incomprehensibility of avidya. Advaitins claim that avidya is neither real nor unreal but incomprehensible (anirvacaniya). All cognition is either of the real or the unreal: the Advaitin claim flies in the face of experience, and accepting it would call into question all cognition and render it unsafe.
III. The grounds of knowledge of avidya. No pramana can establish avidya in the sense the Advaitin requires. Advaita philosophy presents avidya not as a mere lack of knowledge, as something purely negative, but as an obscuring layer which covers Brahman and is removed by true Brahma-vidya (knowledge of Brahman). Avidya is positive nescience not mere ignorance. Ramanuja argues that positive nescience is established neither by perception, nor by inference, nor by scriptural testimony. On the contrary, Ramanuja argues, all cognition is of the real.
IV. The locus of avidya. Where is the avidya that gives rise to the (false) impression of the reality of the perceived world? There are two possibilities; it could be Brahman's avidya or the individual jiva. Neither is possible. Brahman is knowledge; avidya cannot co-exist as an attribute with a nature utterly incompatible with it. Nor can the individual jiva be the locus of avidya: the existence of the individual jiva is due to avidya; this would lead to a vicious circle.
V. Avidya's obscuration of the nature of Brahman. Sankara would have us believe that the true nature of Brahman is somehow covered-over or obscured by avidya. Ramanuja regards this as an absurdity: given that Advaita claims that Brahman is pure self-luminous consciousness, obscuration must mean either preventing the origination of this (impossible since Brahman is eternal) or the destruction of it - equally absurd.
VI. The removal of avidya by brahma-vidya. Advaita claims that avidya has no beginning, but it is terminated and removed by brahma-vidya, the intuition of the reality of Brahman as pure, undifferentiated consciousness. But Ramanuja denies the existence of undifferentiated (nirguna) Brahman, arguing that whatever exists has attributes: Brahman has infinite auspicious attributes. Liberation is a matter of divine grace: no amount of learning or wisdom will deliver us.
VII. The removal of avidya. For the Advaitin, the bondage in which we dwell before the attainment of moksa is caused by maya and avidya; knowledge of reality (brahma-vidya) releases us. Ramanuja, however, asserts that bondage is real. No kind of knowledge can remove what is real. On the contrary, knowledge discloses the real; it does not destroy it. And what exactly is the saving knowledge that delivers us from bondage to maya? If it is real then non-duality collapses into duality; if it is unreal, then we face an utter absurdity.
Some of Ramanuja’s most important philosophical works include –
* Sri-bhasya (a commentary on Vedanta-sutras)
* Vedanta Sara (essence of Vedanta)
* Vedartha Sangraha (a resume of Vedanta)
* Vedanta Dipa (the light of Vedanta).
* Gita-bhasya (a commentary for the Bhagavad-gita)
SOURCES:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanuja
http://www.iep.utm.edu/r/ramanuja.htm
