Poetry’s advantage

Ramanujacharya wrote nine works, for five of which Vedanta Desika wrote commentaries. Of these, the Tatvamuktakalapa and Adikaranasaravali spell out the logical foundation of the Visishtadvaita school of thought. But Vedanta Desika, even while establishing the foundation on which Visishtadvaita rests, also came up with beautiful lines of verse. While philosophy itself can be a tough proposition, what was the need to write explanations in verse, which would only have added to the difficulty? Poetry has an advantage that prose doesn’t. Because of its metre and rhythm, poetry is easier to commit to memory than bland lines of prose. Hence, Desika must have used poetry to expand on what Bhashyakara had established, explained T.S.R. Narayanachariar in a discourse.

Vedanta Desika’s Adikaranasaravali shows Desika’s grasp over every branch of learning, and this is seen in his choice of words and phrases. When he has to indicate the number of sutras that are being explained or the number of adhikaranas in his work, he does not do it in a bland way using numerals. He uses letters according to the Katapayadi Sankhya system to represent numbers in the form of words.

At the very beginning, he sets out clearly all the tenets of Visishtadvaita. He establishes the Supremacy of Lord Narayana and brings out the sareera sareeri concept wherein, everything — sentient and non-sentient (cith and acit) — is His body. The last paadam is the phala paadam, which talks of the fruits that accrue to one who realises the Lord’s kalyana gunas. Earlier he talks of the problems that haunt us due to the indriyas. But the one who has knowledge of the Lord’s qualities is beyond such torments. He knows nothing but bliss. So Desika uses the word rasa at this juncture.