A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c7.s1.5

c7.s1.5

between the Souls and God is concerned, he disagrees with Madhva in maintaining a qualitative monism, though he agrees with him in maintaining a numerical pluralism. For his doctrine of Triune Unity, Rāmānuja finds ample justification in the passages from the Śvetāśvatara which tell us that there are “three ultimate existences, all of them eternal and all together constituting the Absolute, namely, the powerless unknowing Soul, the powerful knowing God, and the eternal Prakṛti, which exists for the enjoyment of the individual Soul, and from which he receives recompense for his works” (S. 22. a), and yet again that “man need but know the three entities which constitute the Absolute, namely, the enjoyer, the enjoyed, and the mover, and that when a man has known these three, nothing remains to be known” (S. 22. b). Thus we see that the Absolute of Rāmānuja consists of Nature, Soul and God, God being identical with the Absolute considered in his personal aspect, while there is only this difference between them that while God is the theological conception, the Absolute is the philosophical conception, of the Triune Unity. It thus comes about that God is as much the Soul of Nature as he is the Soul of Souls. This is the fundamental platform in the philosophy of Rāmānujācārya, and we shall see what justification he finds for such views in the Upanishads themselves.