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Eternal India
encyclopedia
RELIGIONS
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.
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.
BHAKTI MOVEMENT
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.