Saturday, May 21, 2011

Sankara and rAmAnuja


Compare and contrast SankarAchArya and rAmAnujAchArya.
Adi (The First) Sankara's stress was not much on devotion. It entered the Sankara monastery traditions gradually. Adi Sankara's stress was on meditation. The theme was the Supreme Non-dualist soul which pervaded both livings and non-livings i.e. the entire cosmos. This is the 'Sat-chit-Ananda Brahmam' (the eternal dynamic supreme soul). It has nothing to do with God. It has everything to do with the soul and Nature. The meditation should aim at removing the ignorance about this ephemeral world. The followers of Sankara adopted three horizontal lines on the forehead as their token sign.

Ramanuja's philosophy was devotion-oriented. It has its origin from the North European (Latvian-Lithuanian-Old Prussian-Danish-Norwegian-Swedish) Indo-European Aryan methods of 'yaj' (worship) from which the word 'yagna (sacrifice)' was born. VishN and lakmE mAta were the Goddesses of the Indo European Nordic culture.

rAmAnuja's tradition supported dualism and incarnationalism (A word apparently coined by me incarnation +al + ism). Gita serves as the best example of yoking in dualism.

The followers of rAmAnuja adopted vertical three lines on the forehead as their token sign.





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