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Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh PalThis year is the 1,000th birth anniversary of the famous Bhakti saint Śrī Rāmānujā. He lived for 120 years. He travelled the length and breadth of our vast country to preach his simple philosophy of loving God and surrendering to Him to attain liberation (moksha). This was not to be a preserve of the upper classes or the affluent. He touched every human being with whom he empathised and wanted all of them to be liberated.
Swami Vivekananda referred to Śrī Rāmānujā as a saint of the heart, as his heart went out to the downtrodden. His philosophy was practical and not abstract. It recognised the existential reality of the world. Referred to as Vishishtadvaita, the philosophy was woven around a personal God with all auspicious qualities and attributes. It combined the revelations of the Vedas and the outpourings of the Vaishnavite saints from South India called Āzhwārs (those who dug deep into the love of God). God was not only the end to strive for, but the means as well.
Śrī Rāmānujā composed totally nine works in Sanskrit, his magnum opus being the interpretation of Sage Vyasa’s Brahmasūtra titled Śrī Bhāshyā. His extensive early training in Nammāzhwār’s Thiruvāimozhi was the foundation for his philosophy, Śrī Rāmānujā Darśanā.
Śrī Rāmānujā was a leader par excellence and compassion personified. Amudanār who composed the poem of 108 verses translated in this book, says that Śrī Rāmānujā succeeded where the Supreme Lord failed. The Lord was unhappy that in spite of his descending to earth in various incarnations, the people by and large lived in deep misery without any sense of purpose. He, therefore, chose to incarnate as Śrī Rāmānujā. The Lord succeeded in His mission during this incarnation.
Gopāl Srinivāsan
Gopāl Srinivāsan (born in 1944 ) is a graduate engineer by qualification and a post graduate in Industrial Management from Bombay University and an industrial manager by profession. He is on the Board of Directors of a large engineering company, GKW Limited, Kolkata. Being deeply spiritual by inclination, he is also the Managing Trustee of several religious and social Trusts.
Hailing from a Śrī Vaishnavite family having origin in Śrīrangam, who later moved on to Kancheepuram and then to Chennai, the Vaishnavite traditions were inculcated in him from early childhood. He had the good fortune to learn from his father the chanting of Śrī Vedanta Desikā’s Sanskrit and Tamizh compositions at a very early age. Later in his mid-thirties he studied parts of the Samhitas and Brahmanas of Krishna Yajur Veda and learnt the chanting of these hymns from qualified practitioners. He also studied the Nālayira Divya Prabandham and Desika Prabandham and learnt the chanting of all the verses. He was fascinated by “Irāmānusa Nootrandādhi” composed by Thiruvarangatthu Amudanār and studied various books in Tamizh to understand the meanings of the hundred and eight wonderful paeans in praise of Śrī Rāmānujā.
This book, which is the result of these dedicated studies, is meant mainly for those not familiar with classical Tamizh, and therefore interested in understanding the meaning of the verses in English.
Gopāl Srinivāsan is a regular writer on special topics of interest for senior citizens and reviews contemporary books in the monthly magazine Dignity Dialogue published for senior citizens by Dignity Foundation, and edited by his wife Sheilu. He is also the author of a blog (www.chummachumma.blogspot.com) which he started in 2004. His favourite subject is philosophy and in particular the study and practice of Ubhaya Vedanta, the Vishishtadvaitic philosophy of Śrī Rāmānujā. This is the author’s first book.
