Recent Vedanta Literature

SR No.: 269351
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: George Burch
Publisher: George Burch
Total Pages: 29
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 3 MB

Page 22

RECENT VEDANTA LITERATURE
89
God, as exemplified by Hanuman in the Ramayana, the great "text-book of practical religion” (p. 395). Duty, illumination, and love (karma, jnana, bhakti) are the steps in the path to perfection (p. 317). The philosophy of love, mediating between nondualist metaphysics and dualist ethics (p. 598), coordinates the metaphysical, moral, and religious aspects of our experience (p. 430). Love of God leads to mysticism, and according to Srinivasachari, Visishtadvaita is the only "appropriate and fit system for mysticism to flourish in" (p. 437). It culminates, but only after release from the body (p. 463), in the ecstasy of unitive consciousness (p. 490).
Man's love for God is only half of the relation between them. The other half, coordinate and symmetrical with it, is God's love for man. The philosophy of Visishtadvaita is complemented by the religion of Vaishnavism. Philosophy explains the quest of reality by the self; religion, the quest of the self by the Redeemer (p. 154). "The sinner seeks God and is saved, and God seeks the sinner and is satisfied" (p. 390). According to Visishtadvaita God is love (pp. 447, 590). This love is manifested constantly by the working of God's grace, extraordinarily by the periodic incarnations of God as man, and ultimately by God's cyclical reabsorption of the universe into himself (p. 155). The problem of grace and freedom is a paradox for the intellect (p. 174). Theologians argue as to whether divine grace is like the mother monkey saving the babies who cling to her fur or like the mother cat saving her kittens with no cooperation from them (p. 398), but the best simile is the reciprocal secretion and sucking of milk (p. 403). Narayana (God as masculine) rules the world by law, but Sri (God as feminine) rules the world by love (pp. 166, 191).
The systematic exposition is supplemented by a historical sketch. The greatest teacher of the school was Ramanuja, who combined "the heart of Buddha, the head of Shankara, and the apostolic fervour of the Semitic religions" (p. 519). The most serious schism in the school is between those who recognize Sri as mediatrix between man and God and those who consider her a coredemptrix (p. 535). In the concluding chapters Srinivasachari elaborates on the catholicity and all-comprehensiveness of