ABSTRACT
After Samkara, Ramanuja ranks first among the greatest interpreters of Vedanta. Ramanuja argues that God and the souls of men are not the same, though they are not separate from each other, and that the highest ideal and the ultimate goal are to love and worship God and surrender ourselves utterly and completely to him. The material world and human beings, though different, have a real existence of their own as the body of Brahman, who is their soul and controlling power. Ramanuja was born at Sri-perum;-perum-budur in southern India in the year ad 1017. Ramanuja’s theory of dharma-bhuta-jnana, or consciousness as an attribute and not the thing itself, explains his conception of the threefold function of knowledge: it gives reality; it has the power to reveal the truth; and it can reveal the truth of Brahman.
