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‘sport’ but better understood as his self-expression, for he is free from any
c onstraint apart from his own spontaneously c reative nature. The ac c essibility of
t he deit y t o t he world and espec ially individual souls is also indic at ed by t he
analogy, for, as the inner self of everything Narayana, the supreme embodiment of
all perfec t ion, leads t he soul whic h realises it s dependenc e on him t o himself;
Ramanuja even implies that in some sense the deity needs the soul.
This dependence on god was realised through bhakt i, the intense devotion and
submission to Narayana in whic h the devotee realised his total dependence on him.
T he ac t of surrender (prapatti) is for Ramanuja both the start and the c ontinuing
attitude of devotion to the deity and presupposed acceptance of the soul’s
subservienc e: it involves put t ing oneself c ompletely in the deity’s hands, trusting in
his will and await ing his grac e (prasada). For Narayana, though inac c essible to men
in t he fullness of his divinit y, is full of grac e and love for his c reat ion. He has
therefore made himself accessible to his worshippers by descending into the world
in a form similar t o t heirs, and has t he power t o override t he workings of karma,
for he is not in any way subjec t to karma; indeed Ramanuja vigorously denies any
c onnec tion of the deity with evil or suffering, whic h only affec t the divine body not
the highest self. So too Narayana’s six beautiful qualities of knowledge, strength,
sovereignty, firmness, power and splendour – a grouping taken through Yamuna
from the Panc aratras and reflec ting the lordship or transc endenc e of the deity – are
balanced by a second group of auspicious qualities, consisting of compassion,
grac iousness, forgiveness and generosit y and indic at ing his approac habilit y by his
worshippers.
Ramanuja stresses the c ontinued individual existenc e of souls after liberat ion:
t he individual atman at release returns to Narayana to dwell in full c ommunion with
him, and yet distinc t. Everything forms a part of the deity as his body, subservient
to him, and so is indissolubly c onnec ted to him in a perfec t unity. Nevertheless, the
atman, always conscious of itself, is both one with Narayana and yet separate as
the one subjec t to his c ommands and c all to ac tion in the moral sphere. By c ontrast
with god and selves, prakrti is sometimes termed avidya, in the sense that being
unc onsc ious it is naturally opposed to knowledge. But, though c alled avidya in t his
sense, prakrti is the material cause of the world, real and eternal but dependent on
the deity, in support of whic h Ramanuja c ites various Upanisadic texts. Against
Sankara, Ramanuja argues that it is c ontrary to the evidenc e of our senses that
there is a cessation of distinction and that, even if some scriptural texts claim that
Brahman is one only without a sec ond, there are others whic h depend on the notion
of plurality; Ramanuja asserts that we have to start with the evidenc e of our senses
as the most basic data that we are given, a distinctly realist and common-sense
posit ion in c omparison wit h Sankara’s.
Whereas for Sankara the writing of a c ommentary on the Bhagavadgit a was an
unc ongenial task undertaken as a c onc ession to the work’s popularity, for
Ramanuja it was a welc ome opport unit y t o develop his views more fully, aft er
ac knowledging his indebtedness to Yamuna’s analysis. It is on the authority of the
Bhagavadgita that Ramanuja propounds the need for ritual ac tion as a first stage in
the path of devotion. Though tec hnic ally not sc riptural and thus only valid to
support and clarify Vedic statements, in practice the Bhagavadgita is aut horit at ive
and often the meaning of scriptural texts is made to agree with it. Ramanuja’s
c ommentary on it is les polemic al than his c ommentary on the Brahmasutra and
more devotional. He endeavours to show that its three methods of approach to the