the exponent of the Visishtadvaita philosophy - ebooks - ISKCON ...

108 llATIONALE OF BEGGING, Ac. CH. XVII.
beggars are indeed so, and ought to be interdicted from their
professional preying upon others' honest labour. A spiritual
beggar is a benefactor inasmuch as his very presence among
men, not to say of the influence of his words on them, is a
great moral and spiritual influence, elevating them from the
gross to the etherial, from the fleeting to the lasting. Such a
monk-mendicant was our Ramanuja.'
We have said above that JilamSinaja's
main endeavour was
to establish the Unity of Godhood. In doing so, he did not
abstract God from His Universe,—a process tried by monism
ending in negation—, but restored God to His Universe in
all the fullness of His InGnite nature, so to say. By his
practice, he illustrated it, even when he went about his begging
excursions. For it is chronicled that R4maDuja, while so
engaged one day in the thronghfares of Srirangaui, a few boys,
form mere frolic, waylaid him and pointing to a figure like man
which by their toes they drew on the dust, said : " Boasted
friar, here is your God. If He is everywhere, hero He must
be. Worship Him then." Bamanaja was delighted to hear
the boys sermon to him thus. Anon he put his bowl down,
prostrated himself befoi-e the Figure on the floor, and thanking
the boys went his way.
On another occasion he came aci-oss a number of boys in
They were enacting all that they saw their elders
the streets.
doing in the Temple. They had described in the dust a diagram
of the Srirangam Temple, with several chambers allotted
therein for God, for His Consort, His Saints and so on.
Regular
worship they commenced, and it was now time to offer food to
the several Deities. The boys procured the food easily ; for
' Apastamba iu his Dharma-SAtras, says [II. 5, 101 :
^lV-