RAMANUJA

born c. 1017, , Sriperumbudur, India died 1137, Srirangam also called Ramanujacarya, or Ilaiya Perumal (Tamil: Ageless Perumal ) South Indian Brahman theologian and philosopher, the single most influential thinker of devotional Hinduism. After a long pilgrimage, Ramanuja settled in Srirangam, where he organized temple worship and founded centres to disseminate his doctrine of devotion to the god Vishnu and his consort Sri. He provided an intellectual basis for the practice of bhakti (devotional worship) in three major commentaries: the Vedartha-samgraha (on the Veda), the Sri-bhasya (on the Brahma-sutras), and the Bhagavadgita-bhasya (on the Bhagavadgita). Additional reading There are several traditional accounts of Ramanuja's life. The oldest, on which the others largely rest, is that by Anantacarya, entitled the Prapannamrta, which by some is dated to shortly after Ramanuja's lifetime. Based on the Prapannamrta in large parts are the accounts by S.N. Das Gupta in his History of Indian Philosophy, vol. 3 (1940); and P.N. Srinivasachari in Philosophy of Visistadvaita, 2nd ed. (1946).