The Face of Truth: Study of Meaning and Metaphysics in the Vedantic Theology of Ramanuja

by Julius J. Lipner

The Face of Truth examines in depth the Vedantic theology of Ramanuja, the most important and well-known of the classical Hindu theologians. Julius Lipner clearly analyzes Ramanuja's theory of sacred language and divine predication, his views on the nature of the self, God, and the relationship between infinite and finite being.In addition to offering new insights into and analyses of religious matters, The Face of Truth exposes the theology of language the understanding of religious language and God. This is consistent with Lipner's other purpose the furthering of inter-religious dialogue, especially between Hindu and Christian points of view. Lipner has also translated several technical Sanskrit terms into English, making his point intelligible to non-Sanskrit readers. Drawing together the complex strands of Ra ma nujan thought, Lipner succeeds in increasing inter-religious understanding."

Genres: Hinduism

208 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Julius Lipner, who is of Indo-Czech origin, was Professor of Hinduism and the Comparative Study of Religion at the University of Cambridge.

He was born and brought up in India, for the most part in West Bengal. After his schooling in India, he obtained a Licentiate in Theology (summa cum laude) in the Pontifical Athenaeum (now Jnana Deepa Vidyapith) in Poona, and then spent two years studying for an M.A. in Indian and Western philosophy at Jadavpur University in Calcutta (Kolkata). Before sitting for his final examinations, he was invited by the well-known philosopher H.D. Lewis to undertake doctoral research (under Lewis’ supervision) on the self with reference to Indian and Western thought, at King’s College, University of London. Lipner obtained his PhD in 1974, and then spent a little over a year as lecturer in Indian religion at the University of Birmingham (UK), before being appointed to Cambridge in 1975, where he has taught ever since.

Lipner has lectured widely in the UK and abroad, and has been appointed Visiting Scholar and Visiting Professor in a number of universities both nationally and internationally. He has made a number of radio and TV appearances, and is a member of the editorial board of several international journals. His special fields of study are Vedantic thought, 19th century Bengal, and inter-cultural and inter-religious understanding, with special reference to the Hindu and Christian traditions. One of his research projects at present is the theory and practice of Hindu image-worship.

Lipner is a Fellow and former Vice-President of Clare Hall - a postgraduate College in the University of Cambridge - and in 2008 he became a Fellow of the British Academy. He married his Bengali wife Anindita in 1971, and they have two children and to date six grandchildren. Lipner travels regularly to India to undertake research, and to meet family and friends.

Reviews

[Scriptor Ignotus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rāmānuja—an eleventh and twelfth-century Hindu philosopher regarded as the greatest expositor of the Viśiṣṭādvaita (qualified non-dualism) school of Vedānta—is among the most celebrated thinkers in Indian history for his development of a philosophically-sound and classically theistic interpretation of the Vedas; one that articulates the necessity of a personal God—rather than an impersonal, unmanifest, undifferentiated, and attributeless absolute—as the ultimate reality (Brahman), and which defends the soteriological legitimacy of bhakti, or devotional practice.

Many Vedāntins find Rāmānuja’s “organic” theology of Brahman’s essential unity-in-multiplicity to adhere more faithfully than any other system of thought to the true spirit of the Vedas, the Brahma Sutras, and the Bhagavad Gita. In light of this, it is remarkable to discover how little information there is to be found about Rāmānuja’s thought in the English language. This book was one of the only monographs on the subject I could find; but like the other reviewer on this page, I found it an arduous read due to its tedious and gratuitous opacity, and resorted to supplementing the book with other readings: among them, as the other reviewer so helpfully suggests, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, whose article on Rāmānuja covers all the same bases as this text, but in much simpler language.

Much of Rāmānuja’s work was concerned with refuting the then-predominant school of Advaita (non-dual) Vedānta as elucidated by Ādi Śaṅkara (8th c.) and his successors. According to the Advaitins, Brahman, the absolute reality, is a single, all-encompassing, undifferentiated awareness or selfhood, devoid of all qualities and attributes, and entirely unmanifest to our empirical world of multiplicity, difference, and change: the whole of which the Advaitins understand to be an insubstantial and illusory byproduct of self-ignorance (avidyā); itself perhaps brought about by the admixture of a lower, contingent Brahman—saguṇa Brahman—with the demiurgic principle of Māyā, or illusion. By this understanding, our phenomenal perception of distinct and individual selves is part of this illusion, as all supposedly individuated consciousness (Ātman) is identical to Brahman, and the true Brahman is free of all manifestation, distinction, or attribution. Even the concept of a personal God (Īśvara), because of its inevitable possession of attributes and its relatedness to the phenomenal world, is, like the individual self, ultimately insubstantial: a phantasm to be sublated by the attainment of liberation (mokṣa) in the form of self-knowledge.

Rāmānuja finds this school of thought both unreasonable and—what’s worse—impious. If one subscribes to the authoritativeness of Śruti (scripture), as all Vedāntins do, then what is one to make of the abundant Vedic language enjoining rituals of worship and devotion on the part of the practitioner if his individual self is identical to Brahman and liberation consists only in realizing this? Rāmānuja restores bhakti to its central place in Vedāntic practice by effectively denying the existence of nirguṇa Brahman—that is, Brahman without attributes—and identifying the one-and-only Brahman with a personal God (for him, Vishnu in union with Śrī) who, as the Chandogya Upanishad tells us, wills from the first to become multiple—the Self of many.

If our individual selves are an illusion, asks Rāmānuja, then how did they—or our experience of them—come about? The traditional Advaitin answer is that they are ephemeral manifestations of self-ignorance—but whose self-ignorance? To say that Brahman, whose very nature is self-awareness, could succumb to ignorance would be a transparent absurdity. For Rāmānuja, the very possibility of ignorance presupposes the real existence of distinct individuals who are capable of ignorance; and thus the differentiation of individual selves is a reality that precedes our potential lapse. The individual self or soul (jīvātman, or “living soul”) is a substantial reality that is not sublated by liberation. And yet it is not wholly separate from Ātman-Brahman, which for Rāmānuja as for the Advaitins remains the Self of all. The relation between Brahman and the jīva is akin to the semantic relation between subject and predicate; or, in Rāmānuja’s favored analogy, between soul and body. Each person is a mode of Brahman—a member of its “body” and thus identifiable with it in that sense—while also retaining an individual subjectivity and remaining distinct from others.

Ramanuja illustrates this unity-in-multiplicity with the concept of sāmānādhikaraṇya (no clue how to pronounce that), which Lipner translates as “correlative predication”: the possibility that multiple distinct terms or qualities may be rightfully applied to a single referent. In the same way, all individuals are one insofar as they are all qualifications or predicates of Brahman, the Supreme Self; yet each jīva is distinct from every other, and none are reducible to their “referent.” While Advaitins interpret the famous refrain of the Chandogya Upanishad—“that thou art”—to signify the unmediated identity of the individual self with Brahman, Rāmānuja understands it as an affirmation of both the distinction between “that” and “thou” as well as their underlying substantial unity in Brahman. In order for thou to be that, thou canst not be dissolved as a concrete hypostasis.

Another way to understand the relation between Brahman and the phenomenal world is to consider the very character of consciousness, which all Vedāntins believe to be of the nature of Brahman. Consciousness seems to be inescapably intentional: that is, it is always consciousness of some particular mental object, towards which it is directed. There is no consciousness that is wholly abstracted from an objective content; indeed, it would be difficult to articulate how consciousness could be real were it not illuminated by and in objects of intentionality—just as, when a lamp is lit in a dark room, the formless light is given shape by the objects it illuminates. This is Brahman’s orientation to the world: always directed toward the differentiated objects of awareness by which and in which it is made manifest.

Since our individuated selves are substantially real, knowledge alone is insufficient for liberation. Our very embodiment necessitates practices that draw us out of our empirical particularity to assimilate the reality of Brahman as all-in-all. For Rāmānuja, this consists primarily in two forms of yoga: Karma yoga and Bhakti yoga. The former—prescribed by the Bhagavad Gita—is the performance of one’s duties in accordance with Dharma without any desire for rewards, and the latter is a posture of constant devotion and subservience to Brahman.

The Indic thought-world is such a vast realm, with so many layers of richness, subtlety, and beauty, that my readings have so far only made me acutely conscious of the limitations of my own understanding of it. I’m just beginning to find my bearings, but everything I’ve learned thus far has only made me anxious to immerse myself further.

[Luke Viia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was excited to read this, as I've had little luck finding substantial information about Ramanuja written in English. Unfortunately, the writing style here is tedious and makes this a slog despite the short length. Example:

"It is worth pointing out here that our earlier observation about the sui-generis relation between the jivatman's svarupa and its definitional qualities applies, mutatis mutandis, to the relation between Brahman's svarupa (sensu stricto) and its essential qualities." (page 81)

This is unfortunately not an unusual way for Lipner to express himself. In the last chapter the phrase raison d'etre occurs seven times in two consecutive paragraphs. Eight times if you include a third paragraph. It's clunky at best. Example: "the body has no raison d'ere [sic] qua body..."

I appreciate the project the author attempted, and I am glad to understand a bit more about Ramanuja's perspective. To that end, I was somewhat surprised to find that I disagree with Ramanuja in so many ways -- and I owe it to Lipner that I could come to this realization.

edit: If anyone else out there is hoping to better understand the founder of Vedantic qualified non-dualism, as I was, my recommendation is to head over to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

[Tynan Brooks]

Have to agree with the other reviews that the style is lacking here, but the content is worth the read.