2022, Vol. 8, Issue 6, Part B

Every religious system is integrated around some central principle complex though the process of integration may be. At the core of each tradition there is no doubt, an intuited vision. But the vision will invariably be articulated in some conceptual or analogical form, even when the vision itself is said to be ineffable. Thus it is possible to discover an integrating concept at the centre of each religious system. Without probing to this cohering core and analyzing its conceptual structure and significance, there can be no conceptual understanding of any religious tradition.

The central explicating analogy of Sri Ramanuja's system of Visiştadvaita is the sartra-sariri-bhava. I realize that others have argued similarly for the priority of the prakara-prakaribhava this was certainly a prominent relational category in Ramanuja's system, just as were the sesa-sest and amsa-amši relationships. While, however, the prakara analogy signifies in a general way the utter dependence of the universe on the Supreme Self, it is the self-body analogy that most directly and most richly explicates the meaning of this dependent relationship. Not only does this analogy take us to the core of Viśiştadvaita's whole conceptual structure but Ramanuja self-resorts to it specifically at so many crucial points in his explication of this system. And such is the intrinsic meaning of analogy that even when Ramanuja is referring to Brahman as the Supreme Self of all, there is always the implication that the all else is His body.