Rajesh Pathak
“The good of an individual consists not in caste, but in the virtues he or she possess”, used to say Shri Ramanujacharya, who was born in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, in 1017AD. He is in fact remembered more for the great work he did in realm of spirituality, yet in the field of social harmony the initiatives he took were no less notable. Rejecting all kinds of caste based discriminatory prohibitions Ramanuja used to take meal from the hands of chandalas (people belonging to so-called lowest of low castes). He got the doors of famous Tirunarayan Perumaal Vaishnav Temple opened to untouchables. It was because of divine influence of Ramanuja that the Gollas, backward community of South India, was given the right to darshan of Sri Balaji.
Ramanuja earned the knowledge of different schools of Dharma from five different acharyas. But living in the proximity from whom he learnt Ramayana was Shri Nambi (Ghosthipoorna), who was born in an untouchable family. When Ramanuja went to him to seek his blessings, Nambi asked, “Hailing from low-descent, how could I teach a Brahmin like you.” At this Ramanuja answered , “Does one get to be Brahmin merely by putting yagyopavit (sacred thread)? He who has devotion to God, is only a true Brahmin. Great aalvar saints belonged to different castes other than Brahmin, but they all were Bhagvadbhaktas. You know well by the virtue of his abilities low caste born Tiruppan Aalvar became worshipful to many Brahmins. And, most of all, despite being a Kshatriya, Yudhisthir used to worship low-caste born Vidur.”
Another spiritual master of Ramanuj was Shri Periar Nambi(Mahapoorna). He too belonged to low caste. From him Ramanuj learned the knowledge of Vedas and Nalayir Prabandham (Tamil Vedas). It was Shri Periar Nambi who initiated Ramanuja into Vaishnav faith, and from here only Ramanuja later rose as a
successor to the supreme seat of Vaishnavism. In Vaishnav cult Tiruvaimouli is considered to be the basic scripture of bhakti and philosophy, the writer of which was Nammalvar, who belonged to an untouchable caste. Ramanuja inspired one of his disciples to write a treatise on Tiruvaimouli.
Once when a Muslim ruler, Malik Kafoor, was passing through Malukote (Karnataka), he came across a beautiful statue of Sri Krishna kept inside a temple. So charming the statue appeared to him that he could not resist himself from acquiring it. He took the possession of the statue and brought it to Delhi. One who did the great work of getting the statue back to Malukote was none other than Ramanuja. The help and cooperation that he received in this mission came from the people hailing from non-Brahminicle castes. In the memory of this glorious event a traditional Rath yatra is organised every year and people of these castes are invited to initiate yatra before others.
Relinquishing every other desire and feeling spiritually fulfilled is taking refuge in God. The saints who got imbued with this sentiment of devotion were popularly known in South India as Aalvar. The saint, by whom this cult of devotion later came into prominence as ‘Prapatti’, was Ramanuja. He opened the door of ‘Prapatti’ for all those who had been deprived of Dharma due to obscurantism. Later during the 14th century, inspired by ‘Prapatti’, Ramanand Swami, Ramanuj did unprecedented work of giving
social-base to ‘Bhakti Movement’ in northern India.
Recently Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi released a commemorative stamp on 1,000th birth anniversary of Shri Ramanujacharya in Delhi. Speaking on the occasion the PM said “The central message of Sant Shri Ramanujacharya’s life was inclusive society, religion and philosophy”. He said the saint “saw the manifestation of God in Human beings and Human beings in God. He saw all devotees of God as equal.” He broke the settled prejudice of his times, PM Modi added.
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