The Life of Kuresan-3

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Dear friends,

 

In SriRangam Kuresan soon became his Master,

Sri.Ramanujacharya's faithful shadow.

 

Ramanuja was by that time the acknowledged leader of a

great movement in the religious and social history of

India. His following was large and growing in numbers.

His new philosophy, called VisishtAdvaitA was

attracting univeral attention and numberless

adherents.

 

Yet Ramanuja knew that unless his new philosophy was

institutionalised into a system, the newly founded

school of thought would soon wither away. To that end,

therefore, Ramanuja set about writing down the

principles of what later came to be known as "ramanuja

darsanam"... the philosophical system of Ramanuja.

 

Ramanuja was assisted greatly in the task of

sytematising his philosophy by 4 principal disciples

who formed the "inner circle". They were Kuresan,

DAsarathi, DevarAt and EmbAr. All 4 were closely

involved with their Master in the daily study of

scripture, the Vedanta sutras, the 'tiruvoimozhi' and

in the formulation of ideological and polemical

attacks on Advaita, Jainism and Buddhism.

 

Master and disciples over many years of deep study and

refinement, began to slowly build, brick by brick, the

architecture of VisishtAdvaita until they were sure

that they could proceed with the raising of its

superstructure.

 

Ramanuja at last decided to record his commentary on

the Brahma-sutras of Vyasa .... the kernel of Truth

contained in the vast body of Vedic knowledge.

 

It was Kuresa whom he appointed as his amanuensis.

Ramanuja told him,"Kuresa, begin writing down my

"bhAshya" as I dictate it, but should you find

anything I say to be at variance with what we have all

agreed is the considered position of our new system

you should immediately cease writing. By this way I

may know where to stop dictating and review our

positions."

 

Kuresan agreed. And thus began the stupendous task of

writing the great Sri-bhAshya of Sri.Ramanuja.

 

In the course of dictation one day, Ramanuja stated

that the distinguishing attribute of the atomic soul

("jeeva") is its cognitive power. At this point Kuresa

put his writing-quill down and ceased writing. He

dumbly looked up at his guru.

 

The guru RamanujachArya looked at Kuresan and suddenly

flew into a temper. The many years of work done and

the strain of many days of hard intellectual labour

had taken the toll of the ageing guru and his nerves

were frayed. When Kuresan stopped writing indicating

thereby that his Master was probably straying from

right reasoning, Ramanuja mistook it as an affront and

flew off the handle.

 

"Sir, if you mean to write the "bhAshya" on the

"vyAsa-sutras" you may do so", thundered Ramanuja at

Kuresan. He then kicked him and stomped out in a fit

of rage.

 

Other disciples who had gathered there were shocked.

They began to commisserate with Kuresan who however

politely told them,"My friends, I am but a chattel of

my guru. He can do what he wants with me or treat me

any way he wishes."

 

After a while Ramanuja reflected upon the incident.

And he realised that Kuresan was right in finding

fault with his dictated passage.

 

The definition of the "jeeva" as a cognitive entity

was no doubt a good but not valid definition in as

much as the most essential characteristic of the soul

viz. its allegiance or leigeship to God ('seshatva')

was a serious ommission. Defining the soul as

possessing cognition and bliss without stressing that

it was the sole property of God, the Universal Spirit,

was like defining light without any reference to the

sun.

Ramanuja quickly realised that if his original

defintion of the jeeva had gone unchallenged by

Kuresan then the very superstructure of

VisishtAdvaita's theology would have proceeded to be

built on thin air.

 

Ramanuja grew repentant. He beckoned his Kuresan and

told him, "My son, you are absolutely right! Now

please write down the true nature of the soul as that

which is God's ... and let us proceed with the rest of

the work".

 

In such manner, did Kuresan and Ramanuja proceed to

compose the great standard works of "sri-sampradAyam"

that have come down to posterity --- "sri-bhAshya",

"vedanta-deepa", "vedanta-sAra", "vedArtha-sangraha"

and "gita-bhAshya".

 

(contd)

 

dAsan,

Sampathkumaran

 

 

 

 

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