Realism and idealism in Rāmānuja’s self-body metaphor
The ontology of Rāmānuja, as expressed in his Gītābhāṣya and other works, centres on the doctrine of coordinate predication (sāmānādhikaraṇya), expressed through the metaphor of the self-body relationship (ātma-śarīra-bhāva). This metaphor, employed to define the ontological status of God (Nārāyaṇa), the individual selves and the world, also serves as a strategy for reconciling apparently conflict