Although Bodhayana is deemed to have founded the Vaishnava schools of philosophy, Yamunacarya is credited with having steered the second wave of Vaishnava philosophy. This second wave of Vaisnava philosophy was hardly an independent and isolated one. It is supposed to have been substantially indebted to the Bodhayana school of Vaisnava philosophy. For instance, Yamunacarya is known to have referred to the Bhasya of Dramida who was an adherent of the Bodhayana school of Vaisnava philosophy. It would not be unreasonable to aver that Yamunacarya can be said to be the Father of modern Vaisnavism. Yamunacarya's life spanned the closing part of the 10th century and the earlier part of the eleventh century.
The various schools of Indian philosophy have propounded different conceptions of the soul. As a precursor to understanding Yamunacarya's philosophy, it is imperative that one have some familiarity with the Carvaka theories of the soul. Yamunacarya's philosophy was in a significant way a counter to the Carvaka doctrine. I would like first to briefly delineate here the Carvaka conception of soul. the Carvakas do not have a monolithic understanding of the soul. The most prominent of the Carvaka views of the soul adheres to a certain type of physicalism that posits the body or the physical as the ultimate reality. It avers that there can be no sense of the self apart from the physical body. Other Carvakins elevate the senses to the status of the self. Still others cede the ground to Manas as the ground of the self. The Carvaka philosophy posits four fundamental elements as constitutive of life and consciousness.
For a Carvakin, there is no separation of the soul from the body. The self, for them, is rather the body with its Manas and senses. Yamunacarya's philosophy was mainly geared towards countering the materialist doctrine of the Carvakas. Yamunacarya's philosophy is almost Cartesian in its primary suppositions. He stakes his philosophy on the datum of self-consciousness whereby our cognition of "I know" firmly and redoubtably establishes the self as the subject. The body, whereas, is only an object of perception by this self: an object like all other external objects. Hence, the self here is a subject with the rest of the universe, including one's own body, as objects of the former's perception. Even when this self withdraws from the external world to gaze inwardly at itself, the fundamental datum of 'I' still remains unwavering and constant. This 'I' is nothing but the cognition of one's own self. This I stands valid and independent despite the physical associations of our embodied being.
Sometimes we refer to ourselves as 'myself" (mamatma), but that is hardly more than a linguistic convention. The deep self that we are trying to delineate here is formless and shapeless. When we say 'my self,' the percieved and the perciever are the same. We can tell external objects apart from each other on account of the differences in their shape or form. The formless self is an object of spiritual realization and not of cognitive perception. In the lack of such a state of discrimination, the body gets confused with the soul. This is especially the case because every movement of the soul has its analogous counterpart in a bodily sensation.
The various schools of Indian philosophy have propounded different conceptions of the soul. As a precursor to understanding Yamunacarya's philosophy, it is imperative that one have some familiarity with the Carvaka theories of the soul. Yamunacarya's philosophy was in a significant way a counter to the Carvaka doctrine. I would like first to briefly delineate here the Carvaka conception of soul. the Carvakas do not have a monolithic understanding of the soul. The most prominent of the Carvaka views of the soul adheres to a certain type of physicalism that posits the body or the physical as the ultimate reality. It avers that there can be no sense of the self apart from the physical body. Other Carvakins elevate the senses to the status of the self. Still others cede the ground to Manas as the ground of the self. The Carvaka philosophy posits four fundamental elements as constitutive of life and consciousness.
For a Carvakin, there is no separation of the soul from the body. The self, for them, is rather the body with its Manas and senses. Yamunacarya's philosophy was mainly geared towards countering the materialist doctrine of the Carvakas. Yamunacarya's philosophy is almost Cartesian in its primary suppositions. He stakes his philosophy on the datum of self-consciousness whereby our cognition of "I know" firmly and redoubtably establishes the self as the subject. The body, whereas, is only an object of perception by this self: an object like all other external objects. Hence, the self here is a subject with the rest of the universe, including one's own body, as objects of the former's perception. Even when this self withdraws from the external world to gaze inwardly at itself, the fundamental datum of 'I' still remains unwavering and constant. This 'I' is nothing but the cognition of one's own self. This I stands valid and independent despite the physical associations of our embodied being.
Sometimes we refer to ourselves as 'myself" (mamatma), but that is hardly more than a linguistic convention. The deep self that we are trying to delineate here is formless and shapeless. When we say 'my self,' the percieved and the perciever are the same. We can tell external objects apart from each other on account of the differences in their shape or form. The formless self is an object of spiritual realization and not of cognitive perception. In the lack of such a state of discrimination, the body gets confused with the soul. This is especially the case because every movement of the soul has its analogous counterpart in a bodily sensation.
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