Who was the founder of the Vishishtadvaita philosophy?

Ramanuja (about 1017-1137 CE) was a great philosopher and Vaishnava saint of South India. He was born at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai in present-day Tamil Nadu, and spent much of his life at the Ranganatha temple at Srirangam.

Ramanuja taught Vishishtadvaita, meaning "qualified non-dualism". According to this philosophy, Brahman (God, identified with Vishnu) is the only ultimate reality, but the individual souls and the material world are real too. They are parts or attributes of God, like the body of God, and are not illusions. So God and the soul are one in one sense, and yet different. This differed from Adi Shankaracharya's Advaita (pure non-dualism), which held that the world is maya (illusion).

Ramanuja stressed bhakti (loving devotion) and prapatti (complete surrender to God) as the way to moksha (liberation). His teaching built on the devotional hymns of the Alvars, the Tamil Vaishnava poet-saints. His main works include the Sri Bhashya, a commentary on the Brahma Sutras, and the Vedartha Sangraha. He was willing to share religious knowledge with people of all castes. His ideas inspired later bhakti saints in North India; according to tradition, Ramananda, the teacher of Kabir, belonged to his line. His followers are known as Sri Vaishnavas. In 2022, the 216-feet "Statue of Equality" of Ramanuja was unveiled near Hyderabad.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Shankaracharya (8th century) taught Advaita (non-dualism).
• ✗Madhvacharya (13th century) taught Dvaita (dualism), holding that God and souls are completely separate.
• ✗Vallabhacharya taught Shuddhadvaita (pure non-dualism) and the Pushti Marga.