India · c. 1077–1157 (traditionally 1017–1137)
Rāmānuja
Vaiṣṇava theologian and founder of Viśiṣṭādvaita
His ‘qualified non-dualism’ holds that Brahman is one but includes real souls and matter as its body; liberation is reaching God through devotion and surrender, not dissolving into featureless consciousness.
Life and thought
Rāmānuja was born in Tamil Nadu; tradition gives him 120 years (1017–1137), while scholars place him c. 1077–1157. Trained first in Advaita under Yādavaprakāśa, he broke with his teacher over the meaning of the Upanishads and became leader of the Śrīvaiṣṇava community at the temple of Srirangam, where the devotional poems of the Tamil Āḻvār saints were central to worship. His Śrībhāṣya on the Brahma Sūtra is the classic statement of Viśiṣṭādvaita, “qualified non-dualism”.
Rāmānuja agreed with Śaṅkara that Brahman is the one reality, but not that it is featureless or that the world is illusion. Brahman is a personal God, Viṣṇu–Nārāyaṇa, with infinite good qualities. Souls and matter are real, and they relate to God as a body relates to its soul: distinct from him, dependent on him and wholly animated by him. Liberation is not dissolving into undifferentiated consciousness but eternal, loving service of God, reached through devotion (bhakti) and, above all, surrender (prapatti) to his grace.
Works
Argued against
c. 700–750 (older scholarship: 788–820)ŚaṅkaraRāmānuja’s commentary is a sustained critique of Śaṅkara’s illusory world and featureless Brahman.Meanwhile, in other traditions
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Rāmānuja lived traditionally 1017–1137, and is plotted on those dates.
Tradition gives him a life of 120 years (1017–1137); recent scholarship, following John Carman, places him between 1077 and 1157. The atlas now plots him on the scholarly dates and gives both.