Body Text
Vedanta Desika is considered to be the second most important philosopher in the Visisthadvaita school of Vedanta.
He was born near Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu in 1269 and known by the name Venkatanatha. He was educated in philosophy by his uncle Kidambi Appullalar who was a direct student of Ramanuja. By the age of 20 Venkatanatha was considered to be an outstanding scholar in all branches of Indian philosophy.
In the early 14th Century, Venkatanatha moved to Srirangam where he engaged in a philosophical debate with proponents of the Advaita Vedanta school. The debate went on for seven days until Venkatanatha defeated his opponents. After this philosophical battle, Venkatanatha
became known as Vedanta Desika due to his great learning and mastery of the Vedanta philosophy.
In 1327 Srirangam was invaded by Muslims who killed about 13,000 residents. Vedanta Desika hid amongst the corpses. For a time he lived in Melkote in the neighboring state of Mysore and 12 years later returned to Srirangam where he passed away at a ripe old age.
Besides writing a number of dramas and devotional works, Vedanta Desika also composed the following:
*Gita-bhasya – A commentary on the Bhagavad-gita
*Satadusani – a polemic work summarizing his objections to Advaita Vedanta
*Tattva-mukta-kalapa – an exposition to the nature of material nature, jiva, Isvara, intelligence and adravya
* Nyaya parisuddhi – a text revealing the syncretism between the Nyaya philosophy and Vedanta.
*Nyaya siddhanjana – Desika expounds the doctrine of knowledge
elaborately and raises twelve objections in connection
with dharma-bhutajnana or attributive consciousness
*Sesvara-mimamsa – A work explaining the unity between Karma-mimamsa and Vedanta.
The magnum opus of Desika was his Rahasya-traya-sara wherein he details the essentials of Visisthadvaita philosophy.
Desika’s explanations of the transcendence and immanence of Isvara are illuminating. According to Desika, true transcendence (bahir-vyapti) means that Isvara is present even where matter and spirit are not present. Immanence (antar-vyapti) suggests that Isvara is inherent in matter and spirit in such a way that one can never say that Isvara is not there.
Desika also explains the theory of surrender (prapatti) by analysing the situation of man’s sins vanishing after the surrender of man. The sins acquired before surrender vanish at the point of surrender. Afterwards, sins performed because of inevitability will not accrue to the doer. Sins done involuntarily or unconsciously certainly will not accrue to him. On the other hand, sins done consciously, in the sense that they were not inevitable, will vanish in the following manner – one fourth of them through sincere remorse; one fourth by a determination not to perform the sin again; one fourth by a preparation to offer atonement (prayascitta) and the last one fourth by the actual performance of that atonement.
SOURCES:
http://www.ramanuja.org/
www.srivaishnavan.com/
