Abstract
Vishishtadvaita, qualified
non-dualism, is the philosophical system developed by Ramanujacharya in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries CE as a middle path between the absolute
non-dualism of Adi Shankaracharya and the strict dualism of Madhvacharya. The
central thesis of Vishishtadvaita is that Brahman is one, but is not without
qualities or distinctions: Brahman is Vishnu, who includes within his nature
both the individual souls (chit) and the material world (achit) as real but
dependent modes of his being. This is qualified non-dualism: the oneness is
real, but the one is qualified by the genuine multiplicity that it contains as
its body. Ramanujacharya's system accepts the Advaita insistence on ultimate
oneness while rejecting its dismissal of the world and the individual soul as
mere appearances, and accepts the Dvaita insistence on the reality of the souls
and the world while rejecting its position that they are ultimately separate
from God. This article explores the Vishishtadvaita framework, its
understanding of the body-soul relationship as the model for the God-world
relationship, its critique of Advaita's maya theory, and the specific quality
of liberation it describes.
Keywords: Vishishtadvaita,
Ramanujacharya, qualified non-dualism, Brahman, chit, achit, shariraka, Vishnu,
Sri Vaishnavism, Sanatana Dharma, liberation, devotion
Introduction
There is a philosophical challenge
at the heart of any theistic system that also affirms the tradition's
Upanishadic inheritance: how can both be true simultaneously? The Upanishads
repeatedly assert the unity of all reality and the identity of the individual
self with the ultimate. The devotional traditions repeatedly affirm the genuine
distinction between the devotee and God, the reality of the devotional
relationship, the personal nature of the divine. The Advaita tradition resolves
this by holding that the devotional relationship is a lower-level truth that
the ultimate non-dual recognition transcends. The Dvaita tradition resolves it
by holding that the Upanishadic identity statements are not to be read as
claims of literal identity but of dependence.
Ramanujacharya's Vishishtadvaita
offers a different resolution: one that takes both the Upanishadic unity and
the devotional relationship seriously at the same level, without subordinating
either to the other. His key philosophical move is the sharira-shariri bhava,
the body-soul relationship, as the model for understanding how the world and
the individual souls can be genuinely real and genuinely part of God without
either being absorbed into God or being separate from God. The world and the
souls are God's body, as real as a body is real, as genuinely the body's own as
a body is one's own, and yet not God in the same way that a body is not the
self that inhabits and animates it.
The
Sharira-Shariri Bhava: Body and Soul as Model
Ramanujacharya's most original
philosophical contribution is the extension of the body-soul relationship from
the ordinary context of human embodiment to the cosmic context of God's
relationship to the world. The soul inhabits and animates the body: the body is
the soul's body, part of the soul in the sense of being entirely dependent on
it and entirely controlled by it, and yet genuinely distinct from the soul, not
identical with it. A person is not their body; yet the body is genuinely
theirs, a real part of what they are in a qualified but not unlimited sense.
ये भजन्ति तु मां भक्त्या मयि ते तेषु चाप्यहम्।
Ye bhajanti tu mam
bhaktya mayi te teshu capy aham.
(Those who worship
Me with devotion are in Me, and I am in them.)
Bhagavad Gita,
Chapter 9, Verse 29
Mayi te teshu capy aham: they are
in Me and I am in them. Ramanujacharya reads this verse through the lens of his
sharira-shariri bhava: the devotee who is in God is God's body, and God who is
in the devotee is the soul of the devotee. The mutual indwelling is not
identity but the specifically intimate, non-separate, non-identical
relationship that the body-soul relationship describes. The devotee is entirely
within God as a body is entirely within the self that animates it. God is
entirely within the devotee as the self is entirely within the body it
inhabits. Neither identity nor separateness, but the specific quality of the
body-soul relationship: this is Ramanujacharya's most distinctive contribution
to the tradition's understanding of the God-devotee relationship.
Applied cosmically, this means that
the material world and the individual souls are God's body: entirely real,
genuinely part of God, completely dependent on God, and yet genuinely distinct
from God in the way that a body is distinct from the self. God is the inner
controller of the world and the souls, as the self is the inner controller of
the body. The world and the souls exist, move, and have their being in God, but
they are not God, just as the body exists, moves, and has its being in the self
that animates it, without being the self.
The Critique of
Advaita Maya: Where Ramanujacharya Differs
Ramanujacharya's critique of the
Advaita theory of maya is among the most philosophically detailed challenges
the Advaita tradition faced. He argues, in his Shribhashya commentary on the
Brahma Sutras, that the concept of maya as the power that produces the
appearance of the world from the undifferentiated Brahman is philosophically
incoherent. If maya is real, it contradicts Advaita's claim that Brahman is the
only reality. If maya is unreal, it cannot produce anything. If maya is
indescribable as either real or unreal, then this is not a philosophical answer
but a philosophical evasion.
Ramanujacharya's positive
alternative is to hold that the world and the souls are genuine and real, not
appearances produced by any power of concealment or projection, but real modes
of Brahman's being, related to Brahman as the body is related to the soul. This
preserves the unity of reality, because everything is ultimately within Brahman
and dependent on Brahman, while refusing to dismiss the world and the individual
souls as mere appearances. The world's reality is not compromised in
Vishishtadvaita; it is specifically affirmed as the reality of God's body.
सर्वं खल्विदं ब्रह्म तज्जलान् इति शान्त उपासीत।
Sarvam khalv idam
brahma, taj-jalan iti shanta upasita.
(All this is
indeed Brahman. From it the world is born, into it the world dissolves, and in
it the world breathes. Let one worship with calm.)
Chandogya
Upanishad, 3.14.1
Sarvam khalv idam Brahma: all this
is indeed Brahman. This Upanishadic statement is read by all three great
Vedantic schools but read differently by each. The Advaita reading: the
apparent multiplicity of this world is Brahman appearing as multiplicity
through maya. The Dvaita reading: Brahman, Vishnu, is the inner controller of
all this. The Vishishtadvaita reading: all this is Brahman's body; the world is
Brahman's own, as genuinely real as a body is real, and genuinely Brahman's as
a body is genuinely one's own. Ramanujacharya's reading is the one that most
directly honours both the text's affirmation of unity and its affirmation of
the world's reality.
Liberation in
Vishishtadvaita: Similarity, Not Identity
The Vishishtadvaita understanding
of liberation, moksha, is called kaivalya in one sense but more precisely
described as brahma-bhava or the state of being in Brahman, the fully realised
participation in God's being as his body. The liberated soul retains its
individuality: it does not dissolve into God, it does not lose its specific
personal nature. But it is freed from the limitations that material embodiment
imposes: the liberated soul is God's body in Vaikuntha, the divine realm,
participating fully in the divine bliss without the obstacles of ignorance and
karma.
What makes this distinctively
Vishishtadvaita is the emphasis on the soul's active, knowing, loving
participation in God's being. The liberated soul is not absorbed; it
participates. It does not cease to be itself; it becomes fully itself by being
fully within God. The relationship of devotion is not dissolved by liberation;
it is perfected by it. This is the specific quality of the Vishishtadvaita
liberation: not the silence of identity but the fullness of the relationship in
which the lover and the beloved are genuinely distinct and genuinely one, as a
body and the self that inhabits it are genuinely distinct and genuinely one.
Conclusion
Ramanujacharya's Vishishtadvaita
represents one of the most philosophically sophisticated attempts in any
tradition to hold together what human experience consistently presents as
genuinely both: the unity of all existence and the real distinction of persons,
the presence of the divine everywhere and the specific intimacy of the
devotional relationship, the Upanishadic declaration that all is Brahman and
the devotional tradition's insistence that God and the devotee are genuinely
distinct in their love for each other.
The body-soul relationship as the
model for the God-world relationship is an insight of genuine philosophical
originality, one that makes the God-world relationship immediately comprehensible
through one of the most immediate and intimate relationships in human
experience. The result is a system that is both philosophically rigorous and
devotionally alive, one in which the highest philosophical understanding and
the deepest devotional practice are not merely compatible but are two
expressions of the same living reality: the reality of the one that genuinely
contains the many, the reality of God whose body is the world.
References and
Suggested Reading
Ramanujacharya, Shribhashya
(commentary on the Brahma Sutras)
Ramanujacharya, Vedarthasangraha
and Bhagavad Gita Bhashya
Chandogya Upanishad
S. Radhakrishnan, Indian
Philosophy, Volume 2 (1927)
A.K. Ramanujan, Hymns for the
Drowning (1981)
Karl Potter, Encyclopedia of Indian
Philosophies, Volume 17
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