President Ramnath Kovind has expressed confidence that Srirama Nagaram, the venue of the Statue of Equality. the 216-ft pancha loha statue of poet saint Sri Ramanujacharya, would become a renowned spiritual destination for people from across the country and abroad.
Srirama Nagaram, where 108 vaishnavaite shrines have been set up along with the Statue of Equality, was sure to be known as land of devotion and equality which is the corner-stone of our democracy. The President formally inaugurated the 120-kg statue of Sri Ramanujacharya made of gold as part of the Sriramanuja Sahasrabdi Samaroh, marking the 1,000 years of the birth of the saint poet at Muchintal on Sunday.
He was conducted around the venue by Tridandi Chinna Jeeyar swamy who explained the highlights and significance of the Srirama Nagaram. The President visited the 108 Divya Desams (temples) and the venue where Laxminarayana Yagam was conducted for 12 days. The President along with his wife was received by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. He was accompanied by Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan and Minister T. Srinivas Yadav during his visit to Muchintal.
Speaking after visiting the Srirama Nagaram, the President said Sri Ramanujacharya’s Visishtadvait was not only his singular contribution to philosophy, but he also showed the relevance of philosophy in day-to-day life. What was being called philosophy in the West had been reduced to a subject of scholarly study, but what we call darshan was not a matter of dry analysis. “It is a way of looking at the world and also a way of life,” he said.
Saint poets and philosophers like Sri Ramanujacharya created and nurtured the country’s cultural identity, cultural continuity and cultural unity besides building the concept of a nation based on cultural values. This culture based concept of nation was different from how it was defined in the western thought.
References to the Bhakti tradition that united the country in a single thread centuries ago were found in the Puranas and this tradition could be seen in the form of Bhakti sects inspired by Sri Ramanujacharya which spread from Srirangam and Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu to Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution, clearly said that the fundamental constitutional ideals of our republic were based on the cultural heritage of the country.
“Babasaheb had also mentioned with great respect the egalitarian ideals of Sri Ramanujacharya,” he said adding equality in the Indian context was not derived from western countries and it had developed on the cultural soil of the country.
Recalling the celebrations of the 75 years of independence, he said one of the main objectives of the Azadi Ka Amrut Mahotsav was to rediscover the values that inspired the freedom struggle. This would enable the young generation to know the sources of various movements led by Gandhiji, Babasaheb and other. Then, they would realise how the founding fathers of the republic “connected us to our heritage as expressed in the life and work of Sri Ramanujacharya”.
Published - February 13, 2022 08:13 pm IST
