When it comes to devotion, my folks at home do not discriminate between Shri Raghavendra and Adi Shankara. This of course is in addition to a whole contingent of Hindu Gods. A trip to Mantralaya receives an equal gusto and preparation (in spiritual terms) to a trip to Kanchipuram. I find this quite surprising as the philosophies of both these people are divergent to each other. Shankara preaches Advaita(Monism) Vedanta whereas Raghavendra is a proponent of the Dvaita (Dualism) philosophy under Madhva lineage.
One preaches “Brahma satyam jagat mitya jivo brahmaiva na parah” and the other upholds “Hari sarvottama vayu jivottama”. Perhaps why this has not led to a factionist approach towards both these saints would just be the threads of commonality running across both schools. Like Hari/Vishnu being given importance in both the philosophies, the central theist approach and the commonality (to some degree) in rituals. In the Indian household, these saints (include Ramanuja also here) are given an equal reverence to any other God. What they stand for does not become an issue for discrimination.
This is good in one sense that internally people do not fight against each other on the basis of philosophical idealism but it raises a question on whether this unquestioning acceptance without understanding creates a bed for accommodating and spawning hypocritical saints. The beauty of Hinduism lies in its flexibility. It offers a wide range of choice for people to pick and follow with every imaginable philosophy including the atheism of Samkhya and the indulgence of Charwaka (Yaavt jeevet sukham jeevet). Yet it is bound tightly by a thread of commonality so that the flexibility does not lead into disintegration.
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Firstly, well researched and interesting articles.
I slightly differ with your proposition of commonality “Like Hari/Vishnu being given importance in both the philosophies…”, because Ramanuja and Adi Shankara subscribe to different schools.
In my opinion, the reason for absence of factionism (in recent times) is that the esoteric nature of these philosophies render themselves inaccessible to the common man. In a way this is probably good because communicating these ideas through media other than direct communication mostly leads to misinterpretation (probably the reason why vedas and upanishads were traditionally taught through guru-sishya tradition).