About Ramanujacharya:

• Sri Ramanujacharya was born in 1017 in Sri Perumbudur, Tamil Nadu. He was one of the most important exponents of the Sri Vaishnavism tradition within Hinduism.
• He is famous as the chief proponent of Vishishtadvaita sub-school of Vedānta. He was also referred to as Ilaya Perumal, which means the radiant one.
• He worked tirelessly against casteism and social hierarchies, proclaiming that all living beings had the right to realization.
• He also enacted several reforms in temple administration e.g., at one time the entire administration in the Srirangam temple in Tiruchirappalli was controlled by a specific caste. He included persons from different castes in the temple administration. A number of responsibilities were given to women also.
• He wrote nine works that came to be known as the Navratnas including three major commentaries, the Vedartha-Sangraha, the Sribhasya and the Bhagavadgita-bhasya aimed at providing philosophical foundation for devotional worship.

About Vishistadvaita

• Vishishtadvaita is a non-dualistic school of Vedanta philosophy. It is non-dualism of the qualified whole, in which Brahman alone is seen as the supreme reality, but is characterized by multiplicity.
• It can be described as qualified monism or qualified non-dualism or attributive monism. It is a school of Vedanta philosophy that believes in all diversity subsuming to an underlying unity.

Source: EPIC February 2022