Vedanta Desika

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Vedanta Desika (* 1268 or 1269 in Thiruthanka ; † 1369 or 1370 in Srirangam ) was a Guru of the Sri Vaishnava of the 13th and 14th centuries , who mainly worked in southern India .

Life

Vedanta Desika with Brahmatantra Swatantra Jeeyar and his son Kumara Varadacharya

Vedanta Desika (German teacher of Vedanta ) or Venkathanatha, also Swami Desikan, Swami Vedanta Desikan or Thooppul Nigamaantha Desikan, was born in 1268 (or 1269) near Thoopul ( Thiruthanka ) in what is now the Kanchipuram district of Tamil Nadu . He was a student of Kidambi Acchan , who is also known as Athreya Ramanuja and was a follower of Ramanuja . Vedanta Desika, in turn, developed into a brilliant Sri Vaishnava in the post-Ramanuja era. Already at the age of 5 he was noticed by his environment due to his extraordinary mental abilities. From the age of 7 he was instructed in the Vedas and Shastra by his maternal uncle , which he absorbed extremely quickly, so that at this point he was already regarded as the reincarnation of Ramanuja, Nathamuni and Alavandar together. Later he spoke 8 languages ​​of India and was at the same time a “devotee”, poet, philosopher and teacher. More than 100 works of writing were written by him that follow the philosophy of the Vishishtadvaita Ramanujas. The Vaishnava sect of the Vadakalai sees Vedanta Desika as an incarnation of the divine bell of Venkateswara of Tirumala Tirupati . When he reached the age of 21 he was married to Thirumangai or Kanakavalli and the couple had a son named Kumara Varadhachariar in 1317.

Stations

After the death of his uncle and teacher, Vedanta Desika went to the Devanatha Swami Temple in Thiruanthipuram near Cuddalore . There he had a legendary encounter with Hayagriva , the horse incarnation of Vishnu, who had previously given the Vedas to Brahma and was now worshiped by Vedanta Desika in his Hayagriva Stotra . Then Vedanta Desika returned to Kanchipuram to the Varadharaja Perumal, where he composed 50 Shloka and several Stotra in Sanskrit and Tamil on the subject of Prapatti ( devotion to God ). After a stopover at Tirumala Tirupati , one of the 108 divine temple sites ( Divya Desam ) Vishnu and where he composed the beautiful Stotra Daya Sathakam , he continued on foot to Northern India and Nepal ( Badri , Ayodhdhi , Kaasi ). After his stay in the north he turned south again and finally came to Srirangam via Sri Perumpudhur, the birthplace of Ramanuja , where he stayed for several years. Here he held a seven-day argument with representatives of other sampradaya , during which he was able to convince the other scholars of his point of view.

In 1311 Srirangam was taken by the Muslims , led by their general Malik Kafur , who was under the command of the Delhi Sultan Ala ud-Din Khalji . However, Vedanta Desika was able to flee to Melukote in Karnataka with temple scriptures . After 12 years the Muslims were driven out of Srirangam and Vedanta Desika was able to return. From Srirangam he later went on a pilgrimage to the deep south of India and visited several Divya Desam in Kerala and Madurai , including Srivilliputhur .

Vedanta Desika was said to be over a hundred years old and died in Srirangam in the Ranganatha Temple in 1369 or 1370 in the presence of his son.

Works

Gopura of the Venkateswara Temple in Tirumala

Vedanta Desika wrote the following works, among others:

  • Sri Stotra Nidhi
  • Sri Paduka Sahasram
  • Sri Desika Prabandham
  • Sankalpa Suryodhayam (Drama)

His extensive literary work (in Sanskrit ) contains a total of 29 Stotra (poems), 5 Kavya Grantha, 1 Drama, 32 Rahasya Grantha (esoteric writings), 11 Vedanta Grantha, 10 Vyakhyana Grantha (commentaries), 4 Anusthana Grantha, 13 Grantha of different nature as well as 24 Prabandham in Tamil .

Eulogy

Vedanta Desikan, flanked by two lions

Vedanta Desika is extolled in the following thanian:

"Rāmānuja-dayā-pātraṁ jñāna-vairāgya-bhūșaṇaṁ
śrimad-venkaṭa-nāthāryaṁ vande vedāntadeśikaṁ"

“I greet the great Venkata Natha, also known as Vedanta Acharya - lion among poets and logicians, adorned with knowledge and discretion. He rightly received the mercy of Athreya Ramanujar, who had the same name. "

A Thanian (also Thanyan) in Vishnuism represents praise in verse form, which is offered to an Acharya by his admiring disciple. This thanian was written by Brahmatantra Swatantra Jeeyar from the Parakala Matha monastery in the Tamil month of Avani. It is recited before the beginning of Divya Prabandham - a collection of hymns by Alvar (Hinduism) .

Vazhi Thirunamam

Vazhi Thirunamam are greetings that are sung at the end of the day at the end of Divya Prabandham. Its purpose is that the rites performed in these temples, established by the Acharyas and Ramanuja, will continue for ever.

meaning

Vedanta Desika is a very important author in the history of Indian philosophy . The development of the Vishishtadvaita Vedanta , a school of Vedanta , was very strongly influenced by him. Several philosophical currents converge in this school direction:

In the first two points, Vedanta Desika overlaps with his predecessor Ramanuja, whereby he emphasizes Mimamsa more strongly, in the third point he agrees with Yamunacharya (Alavandar) and in the fourth of course with the Alwar. What characterizes him, however, is his smooth synthesis of these four systems, which he intertwines with one another through Mimamsa. Vedanta Desika underlines the uniform teaching (aikashastrya) on which Purva and Uttara Mimamsa are based and makes them in turn his model for extensions to the Vishishtadvaita Vedanta. Similarly, he uses a mimamsa approach to Vedic Shakha reviews to cope with the different locations set out in various Pancharatra Samhitas.

One of the guiding elements in the synthesis of Vedanta Desika is his provedic attitude and his resulting preference for the Purva-Mimamsa, with which he wanted to weaken the anti-divine tendencies within the Vaishnavatum. His provedish attitude is probably also the reason for his admiration for Hayagrivas . Previously, Hayagriva was only viewed as a subordinate Avatar to Vishnu, but Vedanta Desika worshiped him with a stotra of its own. The main reason why he saw Hayagriva as his preferred incarnation of God is primarily due to his intellectual nature. For him, Hayagriva was a perfect combination of the Vedic Purva Mimamsa with devotional devotion to God.

Vedanta Desika also plays a major role in the division of the Vaishnavas into the one direction of the Vatakalai and the Tenkalai , even if the actual split took place long after him. The two directions differ in sociological as well as doctrinal elements. The Tenkalai emphasize the doctrine of Ekayanaveda and the primacy of God's grace over the free will of the individual soul, whereas the Vatakalai emphasize free will . Although Vedanta Desika tried to find a synthesis in this tension, he, together with his theology and philosophy, is now being seized by the Vatakalai as their spiritual originator.

Attitude towards Buddhism

Vedanta Desika was a strict opponent of the Buddhist theory of the impermanence of all being. On the other hand, he set the argument of recognition ( Pratyabhijna ) from the Mimamsa . The ability to remember objects and also to recognize them implies their permanence. This point of contention is of central theological importance. If everything were fleeting and existed only for a brief moment, there would be neither a permanent self nor an eternal God.

ontology

In his Nyayaparishuddhi , Vedanta Desika deals with fundamental ontological issues that illustrate his different position towards the Nyaya Vaisheshika doctrine . The latter propagates in its Nyayasutra a scheme of the three-part division of reality into Dravya (substance), Guna (quality) and Karma (action), whereby substance forms the substrate for the other two. In this Vedanta Desika sees two difficulties. On the one hand, the radical difference between substance and property for representatives of Nyaya means that the process of Moksha (liberation) breaks the connection of the Atman (self) of every individual being to all attributes such as physical suffering or even consciousness. On the other hand, Vedanta Desika could not accept such a separation of consciousness from the individual self or even from God. Moreover, according to the Nyaya point of view, even God would represent a substance and could therefore be separated from his attributes in principle. He had another difficulty with regard to the theology of the Vishishtadvaita Vedanta. One of the main doctrines since the beginning of Pancharatra have been the manifestations of Vishnu (Vibhuti), which proceed from him and are therefore dependent on him. Their simultaneously divine and therefore also eternal nature cannot be reconciled with a division of the material world into eternal and temporary substances.

Vedanta Desika ultimately did not establish his own new ontology, but it is to his credit that he worked out the problems of Nyaya using his own classifications.

cosmology

Vedanta Desika's understanding of cosmology is dominated by the concept of return. In his view, the universe was not “e nihilo”, that is, created out of nothing. On the contrary, according to Vedanta Desika, the cosmos is a separation of God and therefore, like him, imperishable. He counteracts recurring destruction (vilaya) and new emergence with the argument that even during the destruction everything continues in subtle form (sukshma) and neither individual karma nor the Vedas or any other worldly aspect is lost. The concept of creation out of nothing is a typical Judeo-Christian idea. Therefore, Vedanta Desika did not feel compelled to respond to the objection that an everlasting universe separated from God represented a limitation of his omnipotence in space and time.

swell

  • Ayyaṅgār, Tirunārāyaṇapuram Kṛṣna: Swamy Śrī Vedānta Deśikan (life span 1268 AD to 1369 AD, 101 years), as seen through his own writings: Stothrangal and Paduka Sahasram . DK Agencies, Bangalore 2008.
  • Clooney, Francis Xavier: Beyond Compare. St. Francis de Sales and Śrī Vedānta Deśika on Loving Surrender to God . Georgetown University Press, Washington DC 2008.
  • Freschi, Elisa: Free will in Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta: Rāmānuja, Sudarśana Sūri and Veṅkaṭanātha . In: Religion Compass . tape 9.9 , 2015, p. 287-296 .
  • M. Narasimhachary: Sri Vedanta Desika: Makers of Indian Literature . Sahitya Academy, 2004.
  • Schmücker, Marcus: On the meaning of the word I (aham) in Veṅkaṭanātha . In: Gerhard Oberhammer and Marcus Schmücker (eds.): The relationality of the subject in the context of religious hermeneutics. Working documentation of a symposium. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2011.
  • Srinivasa Chari, SM: Indian philosophical systems: a critical review based on Vedānta Deśika's Paramata-bhaṅga . Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi 2011.

Individual evidence

  1. Vīrarāghavācārya, T .: Nyāya Siddhāñjana by Vedānta Deśika with two old commentaries (Saralaviśadavyākhyā by Śrīraṅgarāmānujasvāmi and Ratnapeṭikā by Śrīkāñcī Kṛṣṇatāṇa by theāārya), including . Ubhayavedāntagrantha-mālā, Madras 1976.