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Battling Social Hierarchy, the Śrī Vaiṣṇavism Way Abstract: ​ The approaches taken by Śrī Vaiṣṇavism to counter the evil of social hierarchy and the biases and prejudices resulting from it have been multidimensional – on one hand it has utilised its fairly open and dynamic system by mobilizing the sampradāya as a social ​ enterprise led and inspired by spiritual giants to embrace one and all (at the same time taking care as to safeguard the core practices and values as per Vedas and the śāstra-s from getting diluted, by keeping a strict eye on spiritual merit maintained by the revered ācārya-s ​ ​ of the sampradāya); on the other handit has revolutionized upāsanā itself by equating ​ ​ ​ sacred symbols with the Alvar saints irrespective of their birth or social background and by introducing the four thousand hymns of the Nalayira Divya Prabandham into the canon of ​ ​ ​ sacred literature, according them the same status as the Vedic hymns. This has resonated in pan-Indian religious movements by other Hindu spiritual giants such as Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu of Bengal in the fifteenth century and Swami Vivekananda in the nineteenth, both of whom had recognised the battle against social hierarchy as their priority agendas by throwing open the gates of their folds to one and all – even the so-called ‘other’. It is therefore necessary to analyze the mechanism imbibed in Śrī Vaiṣṇavism and in the teachings of Śrī Rāmānujācarya for undoing social hierarchy, which inspired future generations of spiritual leaders emerging from within Hinduism in general; as well as Śrī Vaiṣṇavism’s influence in inspiring such social and spiritual mobilization starting from south India and gradually opening up a pan-Indian, pan-Hindu paradigm. Also interesting to note will be the take of the tradition itself on the coincidence of almost all spiritual leaders of the Bhakti movement, and indeed almost all the great ācārya -s originating and functioning ​ from south India. At the same time, it is important to distinguish between the conceptual categories used in such analyses of battling social hierarchy, in Tamil Nadu and South India in particular, and in the Indian Subcontinent in general, from the perspectives of Christian evangelism and Dravidian identity-politics, both of which look at Indian history exclusively through the disputed framework of Aryan/Dravidian struggle on one hand and the analyses from a Swadeshi, emic standpoint. Here the distinctions between ‘caste’ as a category ​ ​ rooted in the Euro-American experiences of Nazism, racism and slavery and ‘jāti’/ ‘varṇa’ as ​ ​ ​ categories rooted in Indic social organization must be highlighted. The present study will be accomplished from a Swadeshi vantage point to inquire about the phenomenon of inter-jāti ​ ​ mobility and Śrī Vaiṣṇavism’s role in facilitating the same through faith, rituals and philosophy; to counter the narrow, monolithic and malicious narratives which depict an orientalist image of Hinduism as a three-pronged system of “caste, cow and curry”, emanating from the Breaking India forces. Keywords: Caste, Jāti, Śrī Vaiṣṇavism, Evangelism, Swadeshi, Pan-Hindu Introduction “Pray, is it the wearing of a sacred thread that makes one Brahmana? He who is devoted to God alone is a Brahmana.” This legendary quote from Śrī Rāmānuja , ascribed to the great ācārya by traditional ​ biographies (or, hagiographies as they are known) on him, marks the subversion of social hierarchies that had crept into various communities and locations in the Indian subcontinent by the era that saw the coming of the revered ācārya. This sort of subversion of social ​ ​ hierarchical constructs by way of bhakti is also characteristic of the principal theological ​ approach taken by Śrī Rāmānuja and his sampradāya to counter this undignified practice, ​ which had arisen due to a spiritual lethargy at that juncture of the Indian experience. It is noteworthy that such degeneration of the society right from a basic spiritual and ethical core set of conducts was felt particularly strongly across the subcontinent around the same time, which followed the repeated invasion of the Indian subcontinent by Arabs, Turks and Afghans, and as such it can be described as a pan-Indian temporal phenomenon. The approaches taken by Śrī Vaiṣṇavism, treated here as an enterprise of social mobilisation based on spiritual ethics, to counter the evil of social hierarchy and the biases and prejudices resulting from it have been multidimensional – on one hand it has utilised its fairly open and dynamic system by mobilizing the sampradāya as a social enterprise led and ​ inspired by spiritual giants to embrace one and all (at the same time taking care as to safeguard the core practices and values as per Vedas and the śāstra-s, from getting diluted ​ ​ with a strict eye on the spiritual merit of individuals observed by the revered ācārya-s of the ​ ​ sampradāya); on the other it has revolutionized upāsanā itself by equating sacred symbols ​ ​ with saints irrespective of their birth or social background and by introducing the four thousand hymns of the Nalayira Divya Prabandham into the canon of sacred literature, ​ according them the same status as the Vedic hymns. This has resonated in pan-Indian religious movements led by other Hindu spiritual giants such as Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu of Bengal in the fifteenth century, and Swami Vivekananda in the nineteenth, both of whom had recognised the battle against social hierarchy as their priority agendas by throwing open the gates of their folds to one and all – even the so-called ‘other’. It is therefore necessary to analyze the mechanism imbibed in Śrī Vaiṣṇavism and in the teachings of Śrī Rāmānujācarya for undoing social hierarchy, that also tremendously inspired future generations of spiritual leaders within Hinduism all across India; and Śrī Vaiṣṇavism’s influence in inspiring such social and spiritual mobilization, opening up a pan-Indian, pan-Hindu paradigm. At the same time, it is important to distinguish between the conceptual categories used in such analyses that focus on battles against social hierarchy by different religious and political entities, in Tamil Nadu and South India in particular and in the Indian Subcontinent in general. Some key conceptual categories, such as ‘caste’, which are essentially colonial constructs, are explicated and perpetuated into academic and public discourses by Christian evangelism and Dravidian identity politics which look at Indian history only through the glasses of a disputed historical framework of Aryan/Dravidian struggle. On the other hand, the analyses from a Swadeshi standpoint seeks to identify the ​ social problems without a presumption of conflict for power between social groups. In fact the very notion of treating different ‘caste identities’ as the basis for forming groups can be challenged. Caste itself is a disputed conceptual category in discussing the Indian social context, being imported by British colonial anthropologists with a view to racially categorise, divide and then ultimately rule over the Indian population. It certainly helped the British colonial agenda, which intimately colluded with the Christian missionary agenda, to use ‘caste’ as a conceptual framework to categorise the Indian population and explain her society; for it yielded certain concrete theoretical advantages for the colonial administration and Christian proselytization of the people of the Indian subcontinent. Here the distinctions between ‘caste’ as a category rooted in the Euro-American experiences of Nazism, racism and slavery on one hand, and ‘jāti’/ ‘varṇa’ as categories rooted in Indic social organization ​ ​ ​ on the other, must be highlighted. The present study will be accomplished from a Swadeshi ​ vantage point to inquire about the inter-jāti mobility and Śrī Vaiṣṇavism’s role in facilitating ​ the same through exemplary lives led by its spiritual masters, the notion of bhakti and faith ​ preached, rituals conducted and philosophy expounded; to counter the narrow, monolithic and malicious narratives on Hinduism, cast as a three-pronged system of “caste, cow and curry” emanating from the quarters of the ‘Breaking India forces’ (to borrow Rajiv Malhotra’s phrase). To accomplish this purpose, the study will rely on several traditional hagiographies as well as works of more recent scholarship on Śrī Rāmānuja ’s life, and traditional as well as recent accounts of Śrī Vaiṣṇavism vis-à-vis issues in social hierarchy. Hagiography as a Historical Tool Hagiographies serve as crucial historical sources of information besides being important literary texts within a certain language tradition in determining its literary history. In the case of Śrī Ramanuja and his coterie of disciples, gurus and those whose philosophical positions were challenged by him, we are lucky to have access to many such hagiographical texts. These are mostly written in the phenomenological form, i.e. from the emic or insider’s point of view of the Śrī Vaiṣṇavism movement and its chief proponents, as opposed to a so-called ‘objective’, external standpoint. The advantages of working with such hagiographies are manifold; but two of them deserve special mention in the context of the present exercise. The first is that these hagiographical texts provide us with the inner workings of a school of spiritual, religious and philosophical thought – in this case those of Śrī Vaiṣṇavism – and this presents before the researcher a general understanding of the organisational aspects of a socio-religious movement. Secondly, the scholar is likely to have glimpses of the ‘intentions’ – if any – or in other words, the main impetuses that compelled or initiated such socio-religious mobilisations across a vast land for a long stretch of time. Since our present study focuses on Śrī Vaiṣṇavism which is still a functioning (and in some cases thriving) social, spiritual, philosophical, cultural and religious movement, we hope to have cross checked the historically expressed ‘intentions’ and impetuses with the present, current ones that propelled the movement and gave it its past and present direction, and detect if there has been any change in the direction.

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