Yamunacharya: The King Who Was Brought Back by a Bowl of Greens

The method Manakkal Nambi chose is one of the most admired things in the tradition, and it is worth describing exactly.

The problem. Yamuna was a king. He was not going to receive an unknown ascetic, and a direct approach would have failed.

What Manakkal Nambi did:

• He found out what the king liked to eat
• The answer was thoothuvalai keerai, a preparation of a particular bitter green
• He learned to cook it
• He arranged to have it delivered to the king's kitchen, daily
• Every day, for six months, he prepared it and sent it in
• He asked nothing, said nothing and did not present himself

And then he stopped.

• After two days without it, the king asked where it had gone
• He was told an old man had been bringing it, and had stopped coming
• The king asked for him to be found and brought
• Manakkal Nambi came
• The king asked him what he wanted
• He said he had come to give the king something that had belonged to his grandfather

What followed:

• He began teaching him the Bhagavad Gita
• Yamuna, who was a formidable intellect, engaged with it
• When they reached the second chapter and the teaching about the imperishable self, and then the later chapters on surrender, he understood what was being offered
• Manakkal Nambi told him that Nathamuni had left him a treasure
• Yamuna asked where it was
• He was taken to Srirangam, and shown Ranganatha

What Yamuna did:

• He gave up the kingdom
• He took sannyasa
• He became the head of the Sri Vaishnava community at Srirangam
• And he taught, wrote and organised for the rest of his life

Why the method is admired. Several reasons, and they are worth separating.

One. It took six months of anonymous work. No teaching, no argument, no attempt to persuade. Cooking, daily, and sending it in.

Two. It created a question rather than an answer. He did not tell the king anything. He stopped doing something, so that the king would ask.

Three. It required patience with a very long horizon. The charge had been given by Nathamuni decades earlier, passed through Uyyakondar, and executed by a third person on a man who did not know any of it had happened.

Four. The approach was through what the man actually wanted, which was a particular dish, and not through what he was supposed to want.

How to use it. This is the transferable part and it is worth stating carefully.

The story is frequently retold as a lesson in how to bring somebody to religion, and that reading can go badly. Manipulating people toward a conversion is not what it models, and treating a friendship as a technique is corrosive.

What it actually models is more ordinary: serving somebody for a long time without an agenda, and letting them come to you.

He cooked for six months and asked for nothing. When the king finally asked, the conversation happened because the king wanted it.

That is a good model for almost anything involving another person's decisions, religious or not.

Yamunacharya's writings are the bridge between the Alvars and Ramanuja's systematic philosophy, and most of them survive.

Stotra Ratna:

• The jewel of hymns, sixty five verses in Sanskrit
• A hymn to Vishnu which is also a compressed statement of the entire doctrine
• It is recited daily in Sri Vaishnava practice
• It is where the tradition's classic statements of prapatti appear in Sanskrit

Its most quoted verses. Two in particular.

One says, in substance: I have no devotion, no knowledge, no capacity, and no other refuge. Therefore, having no other means, I take refuge at your feet.

And another states that he has been a vessel of every kind of wrong from beginninglessness, that there is no fault he has not committed, and that his only qualification is that he has none.

Why the Stotra Ratna matters. It gives Sanskrit expression to what the Alvars had said in Tamil, which made it transmissible outside the Tamil country and gave Ramanuja a philosophical vocabulary to work with.

Chatuh Sloki:

• Four verses, in praise of Sri, Lakshmi
• Establishing her position in the doctrine, as the inseparable consort and the intercessor
• Recited daily alongside the Stotra Ratna

Siddhitraya:

• The three establishments: Atma Siddhi, Ishvara Siddhi and Samvit Siddhi
• Philosophical works establishing the reality of the soul, of God, and of knowledge, against Advaita and Buddhist positions
• Only partly extant
• This is where the Vishishtadvaita philosophical position begins to be argued rigorously

Gitartha Sangraha:

• A summary of the Bhagavad Gita in thirty two verses
• Dividing the Gita into three sections of six chapters each, on karma, bhakti and jnana respectively, with bhakti in the middle as the central teaching
• Ramanuja's own Gita Bhashya follows this division

Agama Pramanya:

• A defence of the authority of the Pancharatra Agama, the ritual and theological texts of the Vaishnava tradition, against the objection that they lack Vedic sanction
• A significant work of argument, because temple worship as practised depends on the Agamas

What the works do together. They take a devotional tradition and give it a philosophical and institutional defence.

The Alvars sang. Nathamuni preserved and organised. Yamunacharya argued: that the soul is real, that God is real and personal, that the temple ritual has authority, that the Gita teaches devotion, and that surrender is the means.

And then Ramanuja took all of it and wrote the commentaries.

On the Gita division. It is worth knowing since it is how the Sri Vaishnava tradition reads the Gita.

• Chapters 1 to 6: the nature of the self and karma yoga
• Chapters 7 to 12: bhakti, the supreme being, and devotion, which is the heart
• Chapters 13 to 18: jnana, the categories, and the summing up

The placement of bhakti in the middle is the argument: it is what the other two are arranged around, rather than a stage on the way to knowledge.

That division comes from Yamunacharya's thirty two verses and has shaped how a very large number of people read the Gita.

The last part of Yamunacharya's story is about somebody he never met, and it is the hinge of the whole tradition.

Ramanuja. A young man at Kanchipuram, studying under Yadava Prakasha, an Advaita teacher.

Yamunacharya heard about him. Accounts say he saw him once, from a distance, at Kanchipuram, and said that this was the person who would carry the tradition, but did not speak to him.

The summons. When Yamunacharya was near death, he sent for Ramanuja.

Ramanuja set out for Srirangam. He arrived and found that Yamunacharya had died a short time before.

The body had been brought out for the last rites.

What Ramanuja saw. Three fingers of Yamunacharya's right hand were curled, and had not been so in life.

He asked what it meant. Nobody knew.

What Ramanuja said. He understood it as three unfulfilled wishes, and he spoke them aloud, one at a time.

First: that a commentary on the Brahma Sutras would be written from the Vishishtadvaita position, so that the tradition would have its philosophical statement.

One finger straightened.

Second: that somebody would be named after Parashara, the sage, in gratitude for the Vishnu Purana.

The second finger straightened.

Third: that a commentary would be written on Nammalvar's Thiruvaymozhi, so that the Tamil work would have its exposition.

The third finger straightened.

And Ramanuja did all three.

• He wrote the Sri Bhashya, the commentary on the Brahma Sutras, which is the foundational text of Vishishtadvaita
• He named the son of Kuresha, his disciple, Parashara Bhattar
• And he arranged for the Thiruvaymozhi to be expounded, which produced the great commentarial tradition culminating in the Eedu

How to read the story. Two ways, and they are not in conflict.

Devotionally, it is a transmission that happened without words, at a deathbed, between two men who never spoke.

Practically, it describes something ordinary: a person inherits unfinished work from somebody they admired but did not know, understands what was left undone, and commits to finishing it.

That happens constantly, in every field, and the story is a very good image of it.

On the three tasks themselves. Notice what they are.

• A Sanskrit philosophical commentary, so the tradition could argue in the classical arena
• An act of acknowledgment to a source, by naming a child
• A Tamil commentary, so the vernacular scripture would be expounded to the same standard

That is a complete programme: philosophy, gratitude, and the vernacular given equal seriousness. Yamunacharya had worked out exactly what was missing.

Ramanuja's own history with Yamunacharya's disciples. Worth noting since it explains the succession.

Ramanuja was taught by five of Yamunacharya's disciples, each teaching him a different part:

• Periya Nambi, who initiated him
• Thirukoshtiyur Nambi, who gave him the secret mantra
• Thirumalai Andan, who taught him the Thiruvaymozhi
• Thirumalai Nambi, who taught him the Ramayana
• Thirukkachi Nambi, who conveyed the answers from the Lord at Kanchipuram

So the transmission that Yamunacharya could not complete himself was distributed across five people, and Ramanuja had to go to each of them.

That is the tradition's own arrangement for what happens when a teacher dies before finishing.

Of everything Yamunacharya wrote, the Stotra Ratna is what a devotee actually uses.

What it is: sixty five Sanskrit verses, recited daily in Sri Vaishnava practice.

Its structure:

• Opening verses saluting the guru parampara, Nathamuni and the lineage
• Praise of the Lord's qualities, his supremacy and his accessibility
• The avataras
• The archa, the temple form
• And then, in the last section, the surrender

The surrender verses are the reason it lasted, and they are worth setting out in substance.

One says: I am not established in dharma, I have no knowledge of the self, I have no devotion to your feet. Having nothing at all, and no other refuge, I take shelter at your feet.

Another says: From beginningless time I have been the vessel of every kind of wrong. There is no fault I have not committed. You alone are my refuge.

And another: Whatever I am, I am yours. What is there to consider? A thing does not need to be given to its owner.

That last one is the argument in a single line. The soul does not offer itself to God, because it was never its own to offer. Surrender is the recognition of an existing fact rather than a transaction.

Why the self accusation is not despair. It is worth being clear, since the same caution applies as with the Thirumalai.

The verses catalogue his unfitness in order to establish that fitness was never the mechanism. The point is not that he is bad. It is that the question of qualification does not arise.

A person who reads these verses and comes away feeling worthless has read them backwards. The conclusion of the verse is not the failing; it is the refuge.

How to use it:

• Sanskrit text with transliteration and translation is widely available
• It is recited daily and recordings are easy to find
• Sixty five verses takes around fifteen minutes
• Many people recite only the surrender verses, which are the last portion
• The Chatuh Sloki, four verses on Sri, is usually recited alongside

Where it fits in daily practice:

• After the morning bath, before or after the household puja
• As part of the Nitya Anusandhanam, the daily recitation set of the Sri Vaishnava tradition, which includes Thiruppallandu, Kanninun Siruthambu, Thirumalai, Thiruppalliyezhuchi, Amalanadhipiran, the Stotra Ratna and others
• The full daily set is substantial. Most households do a portion

The Nitya Anusandhanam. Worth knowing as a whole, since this series has now covered most of its components.

A traditional Sri Vaishnava daily recitation includes:

• Thiruppallandu, Periyalvar
• Thiruppalliyezhuchi, Thondaradippodi Alvar
• Amalanadhipiran, Thiruppaan Alvar
• Kanninun Siruthambu, Madhurakavi Alvar
• Thirumalai, Thondaradippodi Alvar
• Thiruppavai, Andal
• Stotra Ratna and Chatuh Sloki, Yamunacharya
• Portions of the Thiruvaymozhi
• The guru parampara salutation

All of it comes from the figures this series has been describing, and it is recited in that order, daily, by people who mostly know the biographies.

A starting point. If you want one thing from Yamunacharya:

The verse about having nothing and no other refuge. It is one verse. It says the whole doctrine and it does not require you to be anybody in particular before you can say it.

Srirangam

• Where he led the community and where he died
• His shrine is in the temple
• The Adhyayana Utsavam and the daily recitation of everything he arranged
• Near Tiruchirappalli

Kattumannarkoil

• Veeranarayanapuram, his birthplace and Nathamuni's
• The Veeranarayana Perumal temple, a Divya Desam
• In Cuddalore district, around 30 kilometres from Chidambaram

Kanchipuram

• Where he is said to have seen the young Ramanuja from a distance
• The Varadaraja Perumal temple
• Also where Thirukkachi Nambi served

Thirukoshtiyur

• Where Thirukoshtiyur Nambi, one of Yamunacharya's disciples, taught
• A Divya Desam in Sivaganga district
• The site of the most famous incident in Ramanuja's life, described in a later entry

Observances:

• His thirunakshatram is observed in the sampradaya
• The Stotra Ratna and Chatuh Sloki are recited daily
• The guru parampara salutation names him

On the Gitartha Sangraha. If you read the Gita, this is worth having.

Thirty two verses summarising the eighteen chapters, with the threefold division. It is short, it is available in translation, and it gives you the Sri Vaishnava reading of the Gita in a form you can hold in your head.

Whether you accept that reading or not, having one worked out summary makes reading the Gita substantially easier, because the text does not announce its own structure.

A note on Gita commentaries generally, since readers ask.

The major traditional commentaries are:

• Shankara, from the Advaita position
• Ramanuja, from Vishishtadvaita, following Yamunacharya's division
• Madhva, from Dvaita
• Jnaneshwar's Jnaneshwari, in Marathi, which is a work of literature in its own right
• Abhinavagupta, from the Kashmir Shaiva position
• And in the modern period, many, including Tilak's Gita Rahasya, Aurobindo's Essays on the Gita and Gandhi's Anasakti Yoga

They disagree substantially, and reading two of them against each other is a good way to see what is actually in the text as against what a tradition brings to it.

A closing thought. A boy of twelve walked into a royal court, out argued the resident scholar with three sentences nobody could refute, and won half a kingdom.

He ruled it for years and had no interest in his grandfather's tradition.

And an old man cooked him greens for six months without saying anything, and then stopped, and when the king sent for him, told him there was an inheritance waiting.

He gave the kingdom back and spent the rest of his life writing sixty five verses about having nothing.