Re: Plea for help from 6th grader

Posted By Mani Varadarajan (mani@be.com)
14 Mar 1997 10:58:01 -0800

Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu> writes:
> Certainly many more people would find Vivekananda's teaching relevant than
> Ramanuja's teachings, which are pretty much confined to Iyengars, who
> themselves are a minority in the brahmin population itself. But I am sure you
> wouldn't use that as a yardstick to judge Ramanuja's philosophy, would
> you? :-)

If I may say so, you are completely misstating the issue.
Is Vivekananda and his legacy relevant to the average,
non-alienated Hindu, who happens to be in the vast majority?

I don't think there is any question that he is not.
I am not speaking of the absolute value of Vivekananda's
philosophy. While I don't think much of that either,
it is not what we are discussing.

Is Ramanuja and his legacy relevant? Let's see.

Without Ramanuja, there would be no Divya Prabandham, no
temple festivals in the style and variety that we have today,
the Tirupati temple would not be the great kshetram that
it is, and the religion of the masses, i.e., emotional
attachment to God, would not exist as we know it.

Where would we be if it were not for the great influence of
Ramanuja on successive saints, such as Purandara Dasa, Kanaka Dasa,
Ramananda, and Chaitanya? Would Vaishnavism be the same?

Mani
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