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Source: The Hindu (http://www.the-hindu.com)

 

Spiritual tradition with universal appeal

 

CHENNAI, MAY 1. The role played by the saints and seers of the

different religious traditions has been always acknowledged with

gratitude by their followers as they had been instrumental in

protecting their respective faiths from becoming extinct due to

threats which had arisen during their long chequered history. In

the case of Srivaishnavism, Ramanuja, who was hailed as

Emperumanar by his spiritual teacher because his compassion

towards suffering humanity overwhelmed him so much that he

disclosed the esoteric teaching taught to him to one and all,

appeared at a crucial period in the history of Sanatana dharma

(Hinduism) when it had to be systematised on a firm footing.

 

True to the spirit of this faith which stresses service to the

Lord as the summum bonum of all spiritual endeavours, Ramanuja is

revered as an incarnation of Adisesha who performs eternal

service to the Almighty in His transcendental abode. When the

Lord manifested in human form as Rama, Adisesha accompanied Him

as Lakshmana and performed service to Rama and Sita. During His

Krishna incarnation, Adisesha was born as His elder brother as he

had misgivings that as the younger one, Lakshmana, he was forced

to obey Rama and hence he could not always act in the best

interests of Sita, the Divine Mother incarnate.

 

It was with a heavy heart that Lakshmana had to kindle the fire

which Sita was made to enter before the Lord accepted Her.

Likewise, he had to escort Her later when Rama instructed him to

leave Sita in the forest. As he did not want to give room to

disobeying the Lord, Adisesha was born as the elder during His

Krishna manifestation. According to hagiological accounts,

Ramanuja himself indicated in an assembly of elders in Melkote

that he was a manifestation of Adisesha. Nammazhwar had

prophesied the birth of Ramanuja for lessening the evils of this

Kali age in one of his hymns.

 

In his discourse, Sri K.B. Devarajan said that the grace of the

Azhwars enshrined in their hymns had been bequethed to successive

generations of devotees up to this day through the the

preceptors starting from Nathamuni to whom the hymns of the

Azhwars were revealed by Nammazhwar's grace. Ramanuja had a

stellar role in this galaxy of preceptors as he was the chosen

one on whom the spiritual legacy of this tradition was bequethed

by the preceptors before him. The confluence of the Vedas and the

Azhwars works which was one of the three wishes of Yamuna

fulfilled by Ramanuja, has enriched the Visishtadvaita philosophy

he systematised by enhancing its universal appeal in the

redemption of man.

 

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