Yamunacharya

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Yamunacharya
Vishistadvaita

Yamunacharya (IAST: Yamunāchārya), also known as Alavandar

Tamil Nadu, India.[2] He is best-known for being a preceptor of Ramanuja, one of the leaders of the Sri Vaishnava tradition.[3] He was born in the early 10th century CE, and was the grandson of Nathamuni, a famed yogi, who collected the works of the Tamil Alvars.[4]

Life

Yamunacharya grew up learning

Pandya king, Akkiyalvan, to a debate. Akkiyalvan, when he saw the age of the youth, sarcastically asked "Alavandara?", meaning "Has he come to rule me?". He defeated Akkiyalvan by logically proving that Akkiyalvan's mother was barren, the king was not righteous, and the queen unchaste. The king and queen, impressed that the boy had understood the shortcomings of logic, adopted him. The queen hailed the boy as "Alavandar". In other versions of the legend, he is given half the kingdom. There is no historical record to show his reign, so it is possible that this happened in a small village, rather than the kingdom of Pandya.[5]

After years of rule, Rama Misra tricked him into visiting the temple of

Naalayira Divya Prabandham
, and offered him the epithet of Yamunacharya.

After the demise of Alavandar, Srirangam was led by the latter's son Thiruvarangan. According to a legend, the deity Ranganatha himself instructed Yamunacharya to go to Kanchipuram and invite Ramanuja to Srirangam.[6] He is also regarded to have received the following instructions:

Works

Alavandar, like Ramanuja, focused both on philosophical debates like

Tamil Alvars
. The works attributed to him are:

  • Chatuh Shloki - a popular prayer in praise of Lakshmi
  • Stotra Ratnam - a prayer in praise of Narayana
  • Siddhitrayam - A treatise on the concepts of ātmasiddhi (demonstration of individual self), īśvarasiddhi (demonstration of God), and saṁvitsiddhi (demonstration of reality in the empirical world)
  • Agama Pramanya - a work supporting the authority of the Pancharatra agama
  • Maha Purusha Nirnayam - a lost work eulogising the divine couple of Lakshmi Narayana, described to the Ultimate Reality
  • Bhagavad Gita
  • Nityam
  • Mayavada Khandanam

References

  1. ^ "Details of Sri Vaishnavism, Guru Krupa Foundation" (PDF). guru-krupa.org. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  2. ^ www.wisdomlib.org (1 May 2022). "History of Theism [Chapter 6]". www.wisdomlib.org. Retrieved 21 September 2022.
  3. ^ www.wisdomlib.org (24 June 2022). "Chapter 1: Introduction". www.wisdomlib.org. Retrieved 21 September 2022.
  4. .
  5. ^ Venkatadriagaram Varadachari (1984), Yamunacharya, Memorial Trust
  6. ^ "Life History of Bhagavad Ramanuja for Children". SriVaishnavam. Retrieved 15 July 2018.

External links