Rāmānuja As a Charismatic Person

Abstract This paper is devoted to the philosopher Rāmānuja, who lived in South India in the eleventh/twelfth centuries CE . While several of his scholastic writings have survived, the only sources about his life are hagiographies and a temple chronicle written at least a century after his lifetime. We do not know how closely they correspond to historical facts. However, they do allow us to determine the nature of the charisma attributed to Rāmānuja by the authors of these works, and to understand their ideas about what signs of charisma were necessary to be a religious leader of Rāmānuja’s stature. The paper will examine two episodes in Rāmānuja’s life that describe how his predecessor Yāmuna and his followers realised that Rāmānuja would be the ideal successor to advance their religious system; and consider the institutional-administrative achievements attributed to Rāmānuja; and analyse the applicability of Max Weber’s model of charismatic authority to Rāmānuja.