Ontology in Rāmānuja’s Viśiṣṭādvaita | Rāmānuja
Ontology in Rāmānuja’s Viśiṣṭādvaita
The central truth of Viśiṣṭādvaita ontology or theory of being is the identity between the Absolute of metaphysics and the God of religion.
It discards the distinction drawn between nir-guṇa Brahman which transcends the duality of relational thought and sa-guṇa Brahman or the personal God of theism as the highest conceptual reading of the Absolute by the popular mind.
The Bhedābheda (dualism—non-dualism) Schools of Bhāskara and Yādava bring out the self-contradictions between the two standpoints by appeal to revelation, reason and sense-perception and reject the theory of nir-guṇa Brahman as pure abstraction in which being and non-being are one.
Scripture would stultify itself if it first affirms the existence of sa-guṇa Brahman and then denies it later on. The theory is the denial of the reality of moral and religious consciousness. Negation denies only the finitude of reality and not the finite itself.
The Absolute is in the conditioned but is not the conditioned, and if the world of space and time given in sense-perception is illusory and non-existent, the inevitable result would be acosmism and nihilism.
Rāmānuja accepts Bhāskara’s refutation of the dualistic theory but repudiates his theory of limiting adjuncts (upādhis) of Brahman as a vicious view which attributes imperfection to God.
No School of the Vedānta is pantheistic if pantheism identifies Brahman with the universe without preserving its transcendence.
In the history of the Vedānta from the age of Śankara to that of Rāmānuja there is a transition, chronological as well as ontological,
from the views of illusory adjuncts (mithyopādhis) of Śankara to the real limiting adjuncts (satyopādhis) of Bhāskara,
from the transformation theory (pariṇāma-vāda) of Yādava and the dualism-non-dualism (dvaitādvaita-vāda) of Nimbarka to the Viśiṣṭādvaita of Rāmānuja which makes the finite self responsible for the errors and evils of life.
There is, however, not much difference between Śankara, the practical Advaitin who adores Vāsudeva or the All-Self, and Rāmānuja.
Rāmānuja conceives Brahman as the absolute. Brahman is the whole of Reality and the home of the eternal attributes or values of Truth, goodness, beauty and bliss.
Brahman is perfect as the second-less and stainless Reality (sat) and has all perfections (satyam, jñānam, apahata-pāpmatvam, sundaram and ānandam) and thus satisfies the highest spiritual demands of metaphysics, morals, aesthetics and mysticism.
The word “satyam” connotes Brahman as real Reality, the true of the true to distinguish it from the migrating jīva and the perishing prakṛti.
It is being which is the ground of becoming, the one which explains the many and the eternal in the temporal and is not bare being, identity or timelessness.
Brahman is and has consciousness as the light of lights (jyotiṣāṁ jyotis); it is self-related but not contentless pure consciousness arrived at by the negative method. It is the infinite with the quality of infinity (anantam).
Brahman is called Śarīrin. It is a symbolic name which signifies Brahman as container, controller and goal (ādhāra, niyantṛ and śeṣin), a unity in trinity.
Brahman is the source of all beings, cit and a-cit, and their inner controller, and they exist for its satisfaction.
The Antaryāmī-vidyā in the Brihadāraṇyaka-Upaniṣad furnishes the chief text for this truth:
“He who dwells in jīva, with jīva, who, it does not know, whose body jīva is, and which He rules from within, He is the self, the Inner Ruler, Immortal.
He is unknown. Yet He knows without the help of the mind and the senses. There is no other knower than He. Everything else is of evil."
Brahman is the life of our life, the inner ruler and the means and the goal. It is ādhāra or the being of our being and in it we live, move and have our being. It is the immanent ground of all existents and their inner meaning.
This idea brings out the intimacy between God and the self which is so essential for spiritual communion, and it avoids the pantheistic tendency. It accepts the distinction between self and God (ātman and paramātman) but denies their separateness.
The idea of Brahman as controller(niyantṛ) stresses divine transcendence and it provides the inspiring motive for ethical religion.
It marks the transition from the Vedic imperative of duty as enjoined in Pūrva-Mimāṅsā to the Vedāntic idea of the deity as the supreme ruler of the universe or niyantṛ.
Brahman as ādhāra is the indwelling self, but Brahman as niyantṛ is the extra-cosmic ruler who is holy and perfect and therefore different from man who is steeped in sensuality and sin.
As the moral ruler of the universe, Īśvara apportions pleasure and pain according to the karma of the jīva and there is no caprice or cruelty in the divine law of righteousness. But the law of retribution is mathematical and legal and offers no scope or hope for redemption.
The Viśiṣṭādvaita as ethical religion transforms God (Īśvara) from a ruler into a world-redeemer (rakṣaka). The moral law of karma is now fulfilled in the religion of mercy (kṛpā or dayā) and not merely tempered by it.
The creative urge in the godhead is said to be impelled by kṛpā and it turns into the dual form of law and love (Nārāyaṇa and Śrī).
Overpowered by kindness, Īśvara incarnates Himself in moments of cosmic crisis, into humanity in order that He may recover the lost self. In this process the transcendental Brahman assumes three other concrete forms of mercy (kṛpā) which are equally real and valuable,
i.e. as Īśvara the infinite or the cosmic self that enjoys the cosmic līlā or play of creation, preservation and destruction;
as the Inner Ruler in the hearts of all beings in order that they may directly intuit Him;
and also as the temple god for worship.
These three, added to the two already mentioned (namely Nārāyaṇa and Śrī) constitute the five forms of the manifestation of Brahman.
The idea of Brahman as śeṣin brings out the nature of God as the end and aim of the world. The self (cit) and nature (a-cit) exist for the satisfaction of the Lord who is at once the way and the goal.
Owing to this self-consciousness and moral and spiritual freedom, the self realizes that Paramātman is the real actor in the universe, and attunes itself to His redemptive will by shedding its egoity and making a self-gift of itself to God.
The true self says, “I live, yet not I, but the God in me.” This view solves the dualism between human freedom and divine freedom.
The definition of Brahman as bhuvana-sundara or the supremely beautiful is more important to mystic communion than the values of truth and goodness.
The aesthetic philosophy of the Viśiṣṭādvaita enshrined in the Bhāgavata and the divine songs of the Ālvārs brings out the nature of Brahman as Śrī Kṛṣṇa the enchanter of souls who ravishes them out of their fleshy feeling.
It will thus be seen that the Viśiṣṭādvaita idea of Brahman is different from that of monism, pantheism and theism and is wrongly construed as that of qualified non-dualism, adjectival absolutism or pan-organismal monism.
It is a synthetic view of the Vedānta which is not to be confused with eclecticism though it is comprehensive enough to accept whatever is good and true in other systems and sects.
It is the meeting-ground of the extremes of monism and pluralism and the doctrines of Ruler and Redeemer. It equates Brahman or Nārāyaṇa of the Upaniṣads with Vāsudeva of the Pañcarātra, the Īśvara of the Purāṇas, the avatāras of the Itihāsas and the sundara of mysticism.