Materialien zur Geschichte der Rāmānuja-Schule VII

The seventh volume of the “Materialien zur Geschichte der Rāmānuja-Schule” makes a first attempt to describe the emergence of the spiritual practice of taking refuge (prapattiḥ, śaraṇāgatiḥ). Its development probably already started at the beginning of the first millennium, namely with an ethic principle of the Dharma literature according to which helpless persons seeking shelter should be given protection under all circumstances. This principle is found as a principle of knightly ethics in the heroic epic Rāmāyaṇam and is attested in the sense of a theological statement for the first time in the Bhagavadgītā. In the reflections that ensue these two textual evidences of taking refuge in about the second half of the first millennium, taking refuge with God becomes an expression of absolute devotion (bhaktiḥ) to God and thus, not only a formula of religious language, but also a paradigm of living spirituality in the tradition of Brahmanic orthodoxy. Within the Rāmānuja School, this spirituality as an expression of supreme devotion is found in Rāmānuja’s Śaraṇāgatigadyam. This volume tries to substantiate the authenticity of this work and to point out its intention. Thereby new aspects are brought into the discussion about the Śaraṇāgatigadyam. It is striking that until Nārāyaṇārya the school taught the practice of taking refuge as a means for emancipation only for those of its followers who did not have the authority to study the Vedānta and thus could not practise Bhaktiyoga, which according to Rāmānuja was the only means for emancipation. Thus, we can assume that during the lifetime of Nārāyaṇārya this spiritual practice was not accepted in the school as a ritual act leading to emancipation for everybody. It was Vātsya Varadaguru’s Prapannapārijātam that, for the first time in the Sanskrit tradition, gave the definitive teaching of taking refuge with God as a ritual leading to emancipation for all followers of the school. As Vātsya Varadaguru based his presentation of the teaching of taking refuge especially on statements of the Pāñcarātra tradition, the question arises if and to what extent the Pāñcarātra can be assumed to be the source of this ritual practice. In fact, the earlier history of this spiritual practice shows that it did not emerge from the Pāñcarātra, but was adopted from the Vaiṣṇava orthodox tradition.