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The World as God's ‘body’: In Pursuit of Dialogue with Rāmānuja

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

J. J. Lipner
J. J. Lipner
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Divinity, University of Cambridge
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Extract

In this essay I propose to offer some observations in due course on how Christian thought and practice in general (though some reference will be made to the Indian context) might profit from a central theme in the theology of Rāmānuja, a Tamil Vaisnava Brahmin whose traditional date straddles the eleventh and twelfth centuries of the Christian era. The central theme I have in mind is expressed in Rāmānuja's view that the ‘world’ is the ‘body’ of Brahman or God. We shall go on to explain what this means, but let me state first that my overall aim is to further inter-religious understanding, especially between Christian and Hindu points of view. In professing a concern for inter-religious dialogue I know that I reflect a longstanding interest of Professor H. D. Lewis. I shall seek to show that the Christian religion can profit both from the content and the method of Rāmānuja's body-of-God theology. To this end this essay is divided into two sections. Section I is the longer: it contains an analysis of what Rāmānuja did (and did not) mean by his body-of-God theme – doubtless unfamiliar ground for most of the readers of this essay – and serves as a propaedeutic for what follows in section 2. In section 2 I shall attempt to ‘extrapolate’ Rāmānuja's thinking into a Christian context, with dialogue in mind. Section 2 cannot be appreciated for the promise I hope it holds out without the (sometimes involved) detail of the first section.

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Articles
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Religious Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 1984 , pp. 145 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

page 145 note 1 For a summary of Rāmānuja's life and for discussion on his date cf. The Theology of Rāmānuja by Carman, J. B. (New Haven and London, 1974), ch. 2.Google Scholar

page 145 note 2 In this article ‘God’ is used as a descriptive term for the supreme being.

page 145 note 3 This article contains the substance of a fuller discussion in my forthcoming book on Rāmānuja, , The Face of TruthGoogle Scholar, to be published by Macmillan.

page 145 note 4 In Hindu thought at least, a monotheist need not be a convinced ontological dualist. Śamkara, for example, espoused a theism which was to be sublated ultimately in an uncompromising non-dualism.

page 145 note 5 Svarüpa: lit., the form proper to an entity qua that entity.

page 146 note 1 The exception arises through Rāmānuja's ascribing to the Lord a supernal, anthropomorphic form, constituted of a sui-generis substance that is not material. Contemplation of and association with this divine form, which possesses corporeal qualities like charm, beauty, pleasing proportions, etc., is part of the blissful experience of liberation. Of course, the Lord's divine form does not exhaust his divine nature nor is it to be identified with the essential core of his being (defined by the five characteristics mentioned earlier).

page 146 note 2 Detailed discussions about the divine nature and divine causality will be found in my forthcoming book.

page 146 note 3 III. 7. 15, Kānva recension.

page 146 note 4 We cannot substantiate this here, but cf. God and the Universe in the Vedāntic Theology of Rāmānuja, by Lott, Eric J. (Rāmānuja Research Society, Madras, 1976), ch. III.Google Scholar

page 147 note 1 Especially under II. 1. 8.–9. Quotations from this Sanskrit commentary in this essay are given from Vasudev Shastri Abhyankar's edition of the Śrī-Bhāshya by Rāmānujāchārya (Bombay, 1914, abbr. ShBh)Google Scholar. Though all translations from the Sanskrit in this essay are my own, reference will be made to the corresponding page number of G. Thibaut's English translation of the Bhāsya, Śri (Sacred Books of the East, ed. by Müller, F. Max, vol. XLVIII)Google Scholar for those who wish to consult an English rendering in wider context.

page 147 note 2 śarīram hi nāma karmaphalarūpasukhaduhkhopabhogasādhanabhūtendriyāsrayah pañcavrttiprānaādhīranah prthivyaādibhūtasatpghātaviśesah. Op. cit. n. I. 8, p. 409, 11. 8–10Google Scholar; Th., pp. 419–20.

page 147 note 3 ato yasya cetanasya yaddravyatp sarvātmanā svārthe niyanturpdhārayiturp ca śakyarp tacchegataikasvarūparp ca tat tasya śarīralaksanam āstheyam. Op. Cit. II. I. 9, p. 413, 11. 14–16; Th.Google Scholar

page 147 note 4 Rāmānuja never says that the world is like (in Sanskrit with the use of ‘-vat’ or ‘iva’) Brahman's body.

page 148 note 1 In Vedāntic philosophical anthropology, the human individual is a composite of spiritual ātman, whose nature it is to be conscious, and material by (essentially insentient). Though Rāmānuja, in common with other Vedāntins, maintained that all living things (including plants) were composites of a material by and an ātman (whose uniform conscious nature in sub-human forms of life could not for one reason or other be expressed fully), it is clear that he regarded the human composite as the (qualitatively distinct) paradigm of the empirical union of spirit and matter, a paradigm we shall adhere to in this essay.

page 148 note 2 See chapter io, i.e. ‘Anima Mundi’ in Farrer's, A.Faith and Speculation (Adam & Charles Black, London, 1967).Google Scholar

page 149 note 1 ayam eva cātmaśarīrabhāvah prthaksiddhyanarhādhārādheyabhāvo niyantrniyāmyab hāvab śeta śeibhāvas ca. sarvātmanādhāratayā niyantrtayāśegitayā ca – āpnotity ātmā sarvātmanādheyatayd niyāmyatayā śegatayā ca – aprthaksiddhatn prakārabhūtam ity ākārah śarīram iti cocyate. evam eva hi jīvātmanah svaśarrasalpbandhab. evam eva parāmatmanah sarvaśarīratvena sarvaśabdavācyatvam. From another important work by Rāmānuja, the Vedārthasamgraha, in Buitenen's, J. A. B. van edition (Poona, 1956), paragraph 76, p. 114Google Scholar (this edition also has an English annotated translation). The expression ‘expressed by every (type-naming) word’ refers to Rāmānuja's theory of divine denotative predication which cannot be dealt with here.

page 149 note 2 Not, of course, in so far as the material body is made of matter, or has a distinctive shape, or functions in its characteristic biological ways, etc., but in so far as the material body is related to its ātman in the technical sense described in n. 1, above.

page 149 note 3 ‘Model’ is to be understood in the sense of a conceptual structure or framework in terms of which a complex, multifaceted reality can be opened up to the understanding.

page 150 note 1 jātyāder vastusamsthānatayā vastunah prakāratvāt prakāraprakārinoś ca padārthāntaratvam prakārasya prthaksiddhyanarhatvam prthaganupalambhaś ca…. VedS., para. 62, p. 107.

page 150 note 2 For Rāmānuja class characteristics and qualities were things with a tenuous reality-status.

page 152 note 1 By rights, Sanskrit grammar demands ‘niyamya’ but all the best authorities have ‘niyāmya’.

page 153 note 1 ayam eva hi arvatra ´sesaśesibhāvah. paragat´tisayādhānecchayopādeyatvam eva yasya svarūpam sa śegah parah śesí. VedS., para. 121, p. 151.

page 155 note 1 This is the point of his theology as ‘viśittādvaita’ as it later came to be called, namely the non-duality of differenced being.

page 156 note 1 See, e.g., Taittirīya Upanigad III. I. I for an important sruti reference encapsulating this idea.

page 156 note 2 Cf., e.g. the discussion under ShBh. 1. 4. 23, p. 386, Ii. 18–22; Th., p. 399.

page 156 note 3 In empirical experience the efficient cause is numerically distinct from the substrative cause. In Brahman's case Rām¯nuja was keen to identify the two.

page 158 note 1 Often enough, especially in his commentary on the Bhagavadgītā, a commentary that is more devotional than philosophical, Rāmānuja states that it is the sells sole function/essence/delight to be the Lord's accessory. Cf., e.g. his comments under Gita 7. 19.

page 159 note 1 I have indicated the outlines of a justification of this kind in my article "Through a prism brightly' in Vidyajyoti, (April 1980) (from Vidyajyoti, Institute of Religious Studies, 23 Raj Niwas Marg, Delhi 110054).

page 160 note 1 R¯mānuja's philosophical anthropology faces a potentially grave problem which the Christian adaptation need not face. Though we have pointed out earlier that Rāmānuja theologizes as if the human ātman-matter composite is qualitatively superior to sub-human ātman-matter composites (even some logical evidence in the form of indirect arguments can be adduced to support this stance) his acceptance of the theory of rebirth (inclusive of âtmanic embodiment in sub-human forms of life) and his lack of critical treatment of the implications of this theory for issues like determining personal identity in general and intrinsic human value over and above non-human animal worth, leave important unclarities in his system.