The first great step towards a philosophic conception of the universe is to assert an absolute Unity; the next task is to explore this idea and unfold its potentialities of significance. Such a unity was affirmed in Greece by Parmenides and investigated by Plato and successive generations of thinkers after him. But many centuries be-fore Parmenides the same affirmation was made in India by teachers of the Upanisadic schools, and in unfolding the meaning of this "great saying" (mahavakyam) Indian thought has flowed mainly in two great streams. Of these one is that of uncompromising monism, the protagonist of which is Samkara; the other comprises a number of schools associated with both the Vaisnava and the Saiva church-es, which all agree in conceiving that the Absolute One as Supreme Being contains within itself divine qualities and creates a world of manifold experience which in essence is real. Of these latter schools the most important is the Visistadvaita ("qualified Unity"), of which the great master is Ramanuja, whose doctrine of Godhead is ably discussed in the following pages. These teachings of Visistadvaita, which assign real qualities of infinite goodness and beauty to a real Supreme Being and ascribe essential reality to the world of experience, wield immense influence among the educated classes, especially in the South of India, and there can be no greater error than to imagine, as many Europeans imagine, that all thinking Hindus hold the monistic doctrine which teaches that the Supreme Being is really devoid of all qualities and that the universe is sheer illusion. This mayavada or doctrine of illusion is indeed very fashionable in many quarters of India; but it certainly is very far from holding possession of the whole field of Indian thought. The Visistadvaita is an equally significant expression of Hinduism, and therefore the present work of Mr. Kumarappa is to be welcomed as an exposition of one of its chief phases.
A great deal has been written in English on the monism of Samkara, whose philosophy has been regarded as the highest product of the Indian intellect, and comparatively little on Ramanuja, his philosophical rival, whose views represent the highest philosophical expression of religious thought in Hinduism down through the ages.
Considering the philosophy of Samkara as typical of Indian thought, Western critics have accused Hinduism of illusionism, i.e., of regarding the world of experience, the world of life and activity, as unreal; and on this ground, they have urged that Hinduism can in the end provide no basis for the living of life in this world. Even if such a criticism be true of Samkara's philosophy, it certainly cannot claim to be true of all Hindu philosophy, Ramanuja, at any rate, repudiates at every turn the doctrine of the illusoriness of the material world and the finite self, and postulates that ultimate Reality is one in which the material world and the finite self find a necessary place. Nay more, he claims that the ideals by which we live-the perfections of truth. goodness and love-are rooted in the very heart of the Eternal. Un-like Samkara, who, as a stern metaphysician, follows the dictates of the intellect, even if it condemns the world of experience to ultimate unreality, Ramanuja is primarily a realist, abiding by the data of physical, moral and religious experience and seeking to systematize them into a Whole in which they are not ultimately lost, but gain new meaning and value. To all those who construct their metaphysics on experience, who are not willing to dismiss the world of values as illusory, Ramanuja's conception of ultimate Reality must be of profound interest. Besides, in Rämänuja Indian theism of several centuries attains its loftiest philosophical expression, and hence deserves greater attention than it has hitherto obtained.
The aim of this work is twofold-firstly, to deal with such conceptions of the Deity as led to Ramanuja's views (thus excluding other Hindu conceptions such as the Saivite, which had hardly any influence on him), and secondly, to deal with Ramanuja's own conception of the Deity. Accordingly, such important religions works of Hinduism as the Upaniṣads, the Bhagavadgīta, Vaisnava portions of the Mahabharata, the Visnu Purana, the Bhagavata Purana, and the Hymns of the Alvars, all of which directly influenced Ramanuja's view of the Deity, are dealt with in Part One, while Part Two gives an account of Ramanuja's attempt to develop on the basis of these a systematic and consistent conception of the Deity. So far as one is aware there is no work on the subject along the lines of treatment here followed.
It is generally thought that the Upanisads tend finally to an abstract monism such as that of Samkara. The view developed in the chapter on the Upanisads is opposed to this, and attempts to show that while no one type of thought is consistently adhered to in the Upanisads, abstract monism represents in the Upanisads an earlier view which gradually obtains its filling from moral and religious sources till it becomes transformed in the end into a monism of the type of Ramanuja's.
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