Reforming the south: Ramanuja and the Virashaiva tradition

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Ramanujacharya lived c. 1000–1100 in Tamil Nadu. He was a philosopher-saint.
Born at Sriperumbudur; died at Srirangam (Tamil Nadu). Britannica dates him c. 1017–1137 [2].
He was a South Indian Brahmana theologian. He is the key thinker of Shrivaishnavism — the Tamil Vaishnava school that worships Vishnu with his consort Shri (Lakshmi) [2].
At Srirangam he ran the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple worship and is said to have set up 74 centres to spread his teaching [2].

Note: NCERT gives c. 1000–1100; Britannica gives c. 1017–1137 [2]. Use the NCERT range in the exam.

Adi Shankara taught advaita vedanta ("not-two"). Only Brahman is real; the world we see is not finally real.
Ramanuja challenged this with vishishtadvaita vedanta — "qualified non-dualism".
The world is real. Daily life is not a trap or an illusion.
Individual souls are real. They are not wiped out on union with God.
God is one, but has parts — matter and soul are the body of God, so God is "qualified" by them [2].
Path to liberation (moksha): bhakti (love of God) and prapatti (total surrender) — not dry knowledge alone.
Why it mattered: he joined popular devotion to formal philosophy. Bhakti now had an intellectual base, so temple worship and learned debate stood on the same side [2].
He argued that careful reasoning is still needed to reach the highest truths — devotion did not mean dropping thought [2].

Worship Shiva only as a linga. No image-worship of a human-shaped god.
Men wear a small linga in a silver case on a cord, over the left shoulder.
They honour the jangama — wandering monks who beg and teach.
Death and rebirth:
They believe the devotee unites with Shiva at death and does not come back.
So they question the whole idea of rebirth.
So they bury their dead with ceremony instead of cremating — this goes against the Dharmashastras (Brahmanical law-books).
Caste: they rejected caste ranking and rejected the Brahmanical idea of "pollution" (that touch or birth makes a person impure). This won them many people pushed to the margins of society.
Social rules the Dharmashastras disliked, the Lingayats backed:
Post-puberty marriage — girls married as adults, not as children.
Widow remarriage.

Basavanna set up the anubhava mandapa at Kalyani.
It was an open assembly. Men and women of every social, economic, religious or linguistic background could come and speak.
Teaching there: all men and women have equal spiritual potential.
Also taught: personal devotion plus dedicated work — prayer and honest labour go together (later called kayaka).
It is often described in India today as an early parliament / early democratic platform for open debate [3][4].
Bharat Mandapam (the convention centre at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi) is officially said to be inspired by the Anubhava Mantapa [4].

Vachanas = "sayings". Short, free-verse lines in Kannada.
Written by both women and men of the movement — this is rare for the period.
They are our main source for Virashaiva ideas.
Famous Basavanna line: people feed the stone image but turn away the hungry living devotee — the living person is the real temple.
Basava Jayanti is marked each year in Karnataka; his vachanas have been translated into 23 languages [3][4].
A colonial/early-modern study of him, "Basavesvara and His Times", is digitised on the Government of India's Indian Culture portal [5].

Tamil Vaishnava bhakti ideas were absorbed into the Sanskritic tradition. The high point of this was the Bhagavata Purana.
Maharashtra bhakti grows from the 13th century:
Centre: Pandharpur (shrine of Vitthala).
The saints there are called sants.
Their songs are abhangs, in Marathi.

Vishishtadvaita = qualified non-dualism; taught by Ramanuja; opposed Shankara's advaita.
Ramanuja: born Sriperumbudur, died Srirangam; linked to the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple; founder-figure of Shrivaishnavism [2].
Basavanna: 1106–68, minister of a Kalachuri ruler at Kalyani (modern Basavakalyana, Karnataka).
Virashaiva = "heroes of Shiva"; Lingayat = "wearers of the linga".
Lingayats bury their dead, not cremate — because they reject rebirth.
The linga is worn in a silver case over the left shoulder; jangama = wandering monk.
Vachanas are in Kannada; abhangs are in Marathi (Pandharpur, 13th century).
Anubhava mandapa at Kalyani — open to all, called an early democratic assembly [3][4]; Bharat Mandapam is named as inspired by it [4].
Tamil Vaishnava bhakti culminates in the Bhagavata Purana.

Bhakti as a philosophical answer, not only an emotional one: Ramanuja did not just sing to Vishnu — he built vishishtadvaita to prove the world and the soul are real, so devotion and daily work are meaningful. This gave temple-centred bhakti an intellectual defence against advaita [2].
Virashaivism as social protest: rejection of caste, of "pollution", of Dharmashastra funeral rules, plus widow remarriage and post-puberty marriage — the religious break and the social break are the same act. Useful as the standard example of bhakti challenging Brahmanical order from within.
Access and language: the anubhava mandapa opened debate to all backgrounds and to women; the vachanas put religious authority into Kannada instead of Sanskrit. Regional language + open assembly = religious authority moving away from the Brahmana monopoly [3][4].
Two routes, one century: Ramanuja works inside the temple and Sanskritic frame; Basavanna works outside it. Both are "reform of the south", and comparing them is the standard GS-I contrast. The Marathi sant tradition from the 13th century shows the movement then travelling north-west.