62. adhvaidham venREnO emperumAnAraip pOlE

In explaining the meanings of the Vedas and Vedantas, three major sampradhayams came into being - Advaitam, Visishtadvaitam and Dvaitam. In these, Advaitam says that the Supreme Lord alone is the truth and that everything else is false. Even though the jIva may appear to be different based on our experiences, it is not different from the supreme. This is the interpretation of Adi Shankara of the famous Upanishad statement "tat tvam asi". Dvaitam says that the Supreme and the jIva are always different and separate.

In the Vedantas, one can see statements that support the former (abheda sruti) and the latter (bheda sruti). Swami Ramanuja followed the teachings of Alavandar and purvacharyas and the words of Azhvars and established Visishtadvaitam based on both bheda and abheda srutis. The cornerstone of this sampradhayam is the sharIrAtma bhAva between the Supreme and the jIva - that is, the Supreme acts as the antaryami of all souls ("yasya AtmA sharIram"). Azhvar establishes this as "udal misai uyir enak karandhu engum parandhu uLan". Vedas too say the same as "antarbahischa tat sarvam vyApya nArAyaNa sthita:".

In his work Sri Bhashya, that is a commentary to the Brahma Sutra, Ramanuja condemns the mAyA vAda of the advaita sampradhayam. This is celebrated in Dhati Panchakam as "mAyAvAdi bhujanga bhanga garuDa" and by Amudhanar in Ramanuja Nutrandhadhi as "uyirgaL meyvittu AdhipparanOdu onRAm enRu sollum avvallal ellAm vAdhil venRAn".

Even when he was a student and learning from advaita teacher Yadavaprakasha, he had the courage to correct the statements made by him. Later, he debated the great advaita vidwan Yajnamurthi, defeated him and took him as his disciple (he would be renamed as Arulala Perumal Emberumanar).

Thirukkolur Ammal is saying "Did I challenge and win the well established siddhantam of Advaitam like Ramanuja did?"

In this word by Thirukkolur Ammal, an interesting feature that is seen is that it is addressed to Ramanuja and it is about Ramanuja - that is, she speaks to Ramanuja about him in the third person.