vedarthasangraha of Ramanuja

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VedharTha sangraha of Ramanuja

 

The Vedhartha sangraha of Ramanuja

is the work of Sri Ramanuja in which he examines the different kinds of texts

of the Upanishads and establishes the philosophy of Visishtadvaita by

interpreting these texts in a manner so as they are not contradicting but form

one whole theory of Brahman, world and the jeeva, all three being real as per

the visishtadvaita doctrine.

 

There are three kinds of sruthi

texts, namely those which proclaim identity of individual soul, jeeva with Brahman, abhedha

sruthi, which are the basis for advaita philosophy, those which declare that

Brahman , jeeva and jagath are different

from each other , the bhedhasruti, which is quoted by the dvaitins and those which speak of the Brahman being the

inner self of all both sentient and insentient, which Ramanuja terms as

ghatakasruti. In his opinion the veda texts must be interpreted in such a manner

that there is harmony among them. The visishtadvaita bridges the two variants of

abhedha and bhedha srutis by means of the ghataka sruti passages to show the

unity and not identity with Brahman. Ramanuja interprets even the so called

abhedha srutis to establish the visishtasya advaitam or visishtayoH advaitam,

which means that the relationship between Brahman and the universe of sentient

and insentient beings is one of body and soul. We shall see how the great

acharya establishes the philosophy of visishtadvaita on the tripod of Esvara, jagath

and jeeva, the Lord, the world and the individual soul, all the three of them

being real.