Book Review: The Face of Truth: A Study of Meaning & Metaphysics in the Vedantic Theology of Ramanuja, J. Lipner

Lipner’s ‘The Face of Truth’ is the finest exposition of Ramanuja’s theology that I have come across. Well-written and deeply insightful, the study succeeds admirably in familiarising its readers with the theology of one of India’s foremost thinkers and in so doing reminds us that there is much more to Vedanta than the non-dualistic philosophy of the great Advaitin, Sankara. Lipner’s well-informed account situates Ramanuja’s theistic worldview in the Indian philosophical context in which it emerged and identifies it as an attempt to counter the non-theistic intellectual currents that had gained currency in the philosophically competitive milieu of the time. The opening chapters of the book focus on Ramanuja’s theory of sacred language and divine predication. In contrast to the Prabhakara understanding of the nature of language (in which all language is held to be prescriptive, that is, injunctive in nature), Ramanuja argues strongly for the fact-assertive nature of language- on this account, language, particularly scriptural language, is employed to convey and express information about the nature of things, and particularly about the nature of Brahman and reality. Sankara’s theological account attributes to the Personal Lord a penultimacy that has the effect of precluding an eternal, non-sublatable relationship between God and the plurality of selves that exist. Ramanuja, in his writings, controverts this view, by skilfully arguing that no pramana or valid source of knowledge can possibly yield knowledge of an undifferentiated Brahman. Ramanuja’s system remains a non-dualistic one, albeit, one that accommodates distinctions and qualifications (hence the term visistadvaita [qualified non-dualism]. In his later chapters, Lipner presents Ramanuja’s views on the nature of the self, Brahman, and the relationship between infinite and finite being. Comprehensive in its scope and lucid in expression, this book does a fantastic job of rendering intelligible the foundational tenets of Ramanuja’s Vedantic theology.