Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

RELIGIONS

MADHWA * Madhwa, bom in 1199, founded the Vaisnava sect known as Brahma or Sad Vaisnavism. He left school at an early age and continued his studies of the sacred scriptures at home alone. * At the age of twenty-five he took monastic vows and devoted himself to the Vedanta philosophy. He wrote an independent commentary upon the Gita. He soon developed a school of philosophy of his own. He passed away at the age of seventy-nine. Madhwa wrote commentaries upon the Upanishads. BASAVA * Basava or Basavaraja was a minister of the Jaina King, Bijj ala of the Kalachuxya dynasty of Kalyana, who lived in the middle of the 12th century A.D, He founded the Shaivite sect of Lingayats or Virasaivas. Basava opposed image worship, Shiva is worshipped by Lingayats in the form of the lingam . Basava rejected the Vedas and the authority of the Brahman class and ordained a new priest- hood — the Jangamas. He advocated complete equality among his followers and the remarriage of widows. He questioned the theory of rebirth. Basava condemned the Aryan practice of cremation, preferring burial. * Basava attacked religious hypocrisy: "When they see a serpent carved in stone they pour milk on it: if a real serpent comes they say, kill, kill. To the servant of God who could eat if served they say, go away; but to the image of God which cannot eat they offer dishes of food." * Lingayats are an important sect in Karnataka. Common Features of Bhakti Cults. Belief in one supreme God of love and grace. Belief in the individuality of every soul, which is nevertheless part of the divine soul. Belief in salvation through Bhakti (loving faith in God). The exaltation of Bhakti above Jnana and Karma and also above the performance of rites and ceremonies. Extreme reverence paid to the Guru. The doctrine of the holy name. Initiation through a mantra and a sacramental meal. The institution of sectarian orders of sanyasins. The relaxing of the rules of caste, sometimes even ignoring all caste distinctions. Religious teaching through vernaculars. Ramananda, Kabir, Nanak, Mirabai, Vallabhacharya, Tulsidas and Tukaram. Ramananda aqd his Muslim disciple Kabir were leaders of the Bhakti movement. Chaitanya also was a leader of the Bhakti movement which swept across India in the 15th -16th centuries and led to the rise of the liberal Bhakti cult under some saintly preachers. They preached the fundamental unity of all religions. They held that the dignity of man depended on his actions and not on his birth, protested against ritualism and the domination of priests and emphasised simple devotion and faith as the means of salvation. BHAKTI MOVEMENT

promising that he would return to visit her before she died and set out in search of a teacher. * Shankara began his teaching among the scholars of the country, converting the teachers first, and then their pupils. * Shankara's disciple annotated Shankara's commentaries on the Brahmasutras. Shankara's life came to an end at Kedamath in the Himalayas. He was only thirty-two years old. During this brief period, he had established many monasteries, and had founded ten monastic orders. This was the first time that Hindu monasti- cism had ever been organised in India. He was a reformer rather than an innovator. He preached no new doctrine or creed. * Sankara not only made commentaries on the Vedanta Sutras, the principal Upanishads, and the Bhagavad-Gita, but produced two major philosophical works, the Upandesasahasri and the Vivekacudamani (The Crest-Jewel of Discrimination). RAMANUJA * Ramanuja was born at Sriperumbudur in southern India in the year A.D. 1017. His mother was the granddaughter of Yamuna, the saint and philosopher. Ramanuja had a teacher known as Yadava Prakas. * Ramanuja developed his own interpretation of the Vedanta philosophy more reasonable than that of the master himself. Yadava recognized Ramanuja's greatness and became his loyal follower. Yamuna, head of the temple of Srirangam, hearing of Ramanuja's learning and purity desired to instal Ramanuja as his successor. Ramanuja did not arrive till just as Yamuna's body was conveyed for cremation. Three fingers of the right hand remained closed indicating the existence of an unfulfilled desire. Ramanuja promised to take upon himself the fulfillment of this task. * Ramanuja took monastic vows, and set out for Srirangam. * Another saint Gosthi-puma, initiated him with a holy mantra, a name of God, but warned him that he must never give that mantra to anyone, for if he did he would be damned, while whoever heard the sacred words would attain salvation. Ramanuja went at once into the temple, gathered a crowd around him, and uttered the holy mantra 'Om namo Narayanaya'. Goshti-puma rebuked him for his disobedience. Ramanuja replied, 'If by my damnation so many can be saved, damnation is my supreme desire'. The saint answered, 'Because of your great love for humanity, the philoso- phy of Visistadvaita shall henceforth be known as the Ramanuja Philosophy'. * Ramanuja wrote his commentary upon the Brahma Sutras, as he had promised before the corpse of Yamuna. This work known as Sri Bhasya, is held in great respect by the followers of Sri Vaisnavism. He also wrote commentaries upon the Gita and some original philosophical treatises propounding his doctrine of Visistadvaita or "qualified monism". He passed away in the year A.D. 1137 after a fruitful life of one hundred and twenty years. * Ramanuja declared that caste had nothing to do with the soul's quality. The reaction against Shankara's advaitism reached its climax in Madhwacharya's dualistic dvaita philosophy. Madhwa born near Udupi in Karnataka in the 12th C attacked Shankara's philosophy as a disguised variety of Buddhism. Among Madhwacharya's disciples was Purandaradasa - a social reformer and one of the creators of the Carnatic system of music.