On the sacred day of Panguni Uttaram at Srirangam, when Sri: Ranganatha came forth in festival court seated with His consort Sri: Ranganayaki upon the divine throne, Bhagavad Ramanuja approached the Lord and offered himself and all that he had. The Saranagati Gadyam is that offering set down in Sanskrit prose. It is not a treatise. It is a conversation — the Acharya speaking first to the Divine Mother, then through her to her Beloved, and finally receiving the Lord's reply in his heart. The whole work is a living commentary on the dvaya-mantra (the twofold mantra of refuge at the feet of Sri:man Na:ra:yana).

Ramanuja does not plead only for himself. He pleads on behalf of every soul who will one day take shelter in his lineage. The Lord's assurance, when it comes at the end, is therefore an assurance given to all of us who stand behind the Acharya.

O Divine Mother, Sri:!

You who dwell in a forest of lotuses, whose beauty and qualities are perfectly fitted to Bhagavan Na:ra:yana and most dear to Him — measureless in glory, sovereignty, gentleness, and every auspicious virtue. Pure and without flaw, never for a moment separated from your Lord, crowned queen of the Lord of all the devas, mother of all the worlds and — more particularly — my mother, refuge of the refugeless:

I, who have no other place to turn, take refuge in you.

Mother, I come to you with one prayer.

Let my sharanagati (total surrender) at the lotus feet of Bhagavan be true, well-placed, and fruitful — uninterrupted until it yields the fruit I seek. And the fruit I seek is this: to be accepted, under every circumstance and in every form, into eternal kainkarya (loving service) at His feet.

This longing for service is itself the fruit of unlimited, overflowing love — love born of the bliss of experiencing Him. That experience is itself the flowering of devotion in its three deepening stages: parabhakti (the desire for a vision of the Lord), parajna:na (direct perception), and paramabhakti (the inability to endure even a moment without Him). All of it, Mother, I receive only through you. Plead my case.

"So shall it be. Through this surrender of yours, every one of your wishes shall be fulfilled."

Now, with the Mother's blessing, Ramanuja turns to the Lord Himself.

O Lord, You are the very opposite of all that is lowly; the sole dwelling of everything good; unlike every other being that exists; the pure, infinite, self-luminous embodiment of knowledge and bliss.

Your divya-mangala-vigraha (divine auspicious form) is as You desire it to be — unchanging, beyond thought, wondrous, eternal and without flaw, of radiance that shames the sun, loveliness in every limb and in the whole, fragrant, soft, forever youthful. A form that is a boundless treasury of every excellence.

You are an ocean — vast, deep, without shore — of all auspicious qualities. Of knowledge that holds all things at once. Of power that sustains the worlds. Of lordship, valor, might, and splendor. Of sausi:lya (the ease with which the highest mingles with the lowest), vatsalya (the cow-like love that finds the devotee's very flaws endearing), tenderness and uprightness, goodwill and equal regard, compassion and sweetness, fathomless depth and generosity, cleverness and steadfastness, courage and fearlessness, bravery and prowess. Your wishes are ever fulfilled; Your will is always carried out; You take pleasure in doing good for Your devotees and remember even the smallest act of theirs with gratitude. These qualities, and countless more, rise in You like flood upon flood in a boundless ocean.

Your form is adorned with ornaments beyond counting — each one wondrous, eternal, fragrant, soft to the touch, blazing with splendor: crowns, pendants, earrings shaped like makara, necklaces, chains, armlets, bracelets, the sri:vathsa (the auspicious mark on Your chest) and the kaustubha gem, strings of pearls, the waistband, the pi:tha:mbara (golden silk), the girdle of gold, the anklets. Your weapons — the sankha (conch), cakra (discus), gadha: (mace), sword, sa:ranga (bow), and more — are themselves divine: sentient, eager, ever-sharp, and ever-ready to defend Your devotees.

You are the Beloved of Sri:, whose every auspicious quality matches and delights You. You are the consort and Lord of Bhu:-devi and Ni:la-devi as well. Your lotus feet are served by an endless retinue — A:dise:sha who is Your canopy, throne, sandal, and bed; Vishvaksena, Your commander; Garuda; and countless other nitya-suris (eternal residents of Vaikuntha) and their consorts, each eternally absorbed in every form of service.

You are Lord of Sri: Vaikuntha, the apra:kritha (non-material) realm of bliss — infinite, faultless, unimaginable even to the greatest yogis. And You are Lord also of this world of sport, playing with the creation, sustenance, and dissolution of all things through the instruments of prakrithi (matter), purusha (souls), and ka:la (time).

O Sathyaka:ma (whose every desire is fulfilled)! O Sathyasankalpa (whose every will comes to pass)! O Parabrahman! O Purushoththama! O Possessor of infinite glory! O Sri:man! O Na:ra:yana! O Lord of Sri: Vaikuntha!

O ocean of boundless mercy, sausi:lya, vatsalya, lordship, and beauty! O refuge of every world without distinction! O remover of the grief of all who bow before You! O sole sea of love for those who have taken shelter in You!

You who know the true nature of every being at every moment. You who command all that moves and all that stands still. Lord and Possessor of all sentient and insentient things. Support of the worlds. Master of the universe. My Master. Sathyaka:ma. Sathyasankalpa. Unlike every other thing that is.

Fulfiller of every right desire. Friend in calamity. Sri:man. Na:ra:yana. Refuge of the refugeless:

I, who have no other refuge, fall at Your two lotus feet and take shelter there.

(Here the dvaya-mantra is recited, in silence.)

Renouncing father, mother, wife, children, kin, friends, teachers; jewels, wealth, grain, fields, homes; renouncing every dharma and every desire — I seek You, O Lord whose feet have measured the worlds, as my only refuge.

You are my mother. You are my father. You are my kinsman. You are my teacher. You are knowledge itself. You are wealth. You are everything — O Lord of lords, You alone are my all.

You are the Father of all that moves and does not move; the Guru most worthy of worship; no one in these three worlds equals You, and who then could surpass You, O Being of unsurpassed glory?

Therefore, prostrating with my whole body, I entreat You, Lord most worthy of praise: bear with me as a father bears with his son, as a friend bears with his friend, as a lover bears with the beloved.

Forgive me, Lord. Forgive every sin I have committed through mind, word, and body, over beginningless time: the countless acts forbidden by the scriptures that I have done, the prescribed duties I have left undone, the offenses against You, the offenses against Your devotees, the unpardonable offenses — those that have already begun to bear their bitter fruit and those that lie waiting to ripen; those done, those being done, those yet to be done. Forgive every one of them, without remainder.

Forgive, too, my false understanding — the perverse knowledge that has clung to me through beginningless time, and the perverse actions that have flowed from it. I have misunderstood my own soul. I have misunderstood the world. I have lived as if the body were the soul, as if the soul were its own master, as if some other than You were my Lord. Forgive what I have thought wrongly and acted wrongly, and what I am thinking and doing now, and what I will think and do — forgive all of it.

Lord, this body-bound condition of mine — set in motion by my beginningless stream of actions; veiling Your true nature from me; breeding in me the false conviction that the body is the soul; making me crave the objects of the senses; holding me fast through the body, the sense-organs, the objects of enjoyment, and the subtle elements — this is Your ma:ya:, woven of the three gunas, and none can cross it except by taking refuge in You.

I, who am Your servant by nature, have surrendered. I have declared: "I have taken refuge. I am Yours, Your servant."

Take me across.

O Lord, in the Gi:tha: You said:

"Among all devotees, the one who truly knows is ever-yoked with Me, devoted to Me alone. He is supremely dear to Me; I am supremely dear to him."

"Noble are all who worship Me, but the one who truly knows is My very soul, devoted to Me as the highest goal."

"At the end of many births, the one who has awakened takes refuge in Me, knowing Va:sude:va is all. Such a great soul is very rare to find."

Make me such a one.

You also said: "That Supreme Person, O Pa:rtha, is reached only by single-pointed devotion. Only by such devotion am I known and entered and seen as I truly am." Grant me that devotion.

Grant that I become the very embodiment of parabhakti, parajna:na, and paramabhakti — the three deepening states of love for You.

And then — through the full, unbroken, eternal, clear experience of You that flows from this devotion, an experience sought for its own sake and for no other, an experience of boundless sweetness — let me become the very personification of the longing to serve You in every form and under every circumstance. Accept me as Your eternal servant.

Now the Lord Himself speaks to Ramanuja from within:

"My Ramanuja —

You have not walked the scriptural paths to their end. You carry a crushing load of sins that blocks those paths. You have offended Me, and you have offended My devotees; you have committed offenses that would ordinarily be unpardonable. Your very nature has long been veiled by a beginningless ahanka:ra (the sense of 'I' and 'mine') and by the perverse impressions it has layered over your soul. You are bound to prakrithi with its three gunas, and suffer therefore the threefold miseries — from your own body and mind, from other beings, and from the forces of nature. You have been battered by pleasure and pain, by desires that deserve to be renounced, and by the narrowness of your knowledge.

And yet — you have somehow uttered the dvaya-mantra.

By My grace alone, and by nothing else:

Every obstacle to your single-pointed, undying devotion to My lotus feet, with all its roots and causes, shall be destroyed. Parabhakti, parajna:na, and paramabhakti shall grow in you and shall be brought to fruition by My grace alone. You shall directly experience Me as I am — My nature, form, qualities, glory, and sport — and you shall know your own self also as it truly is: solely Mine, commanded by Me, whose single essence is service to Me, whose single experience is Me, whose single joy is being Mine. The full, unbroken, eternal, clear, never-diminishing, boundlessly loving experience of Me will be yours. And out of that experience shall rise the boundless love that makes you the very embodiment of the longing to serve Me always and everywhere — and so you shall be My eternal servant. So you have become.

You will be rid of every worldly sorrow. You will pass your days chanting the dvaya-mantra and meditating on its meaning. At the hour of death you will be cared for, and you will enter My Land of Bliss for eternal service.

Let no doubt linger in your mind.

I have never spoken falsely and I shall not now. 'To the one who takes refuge in Me even once, saying "I am Yours," I grant protection from all beings — this is My vow,' I declared to Vibhi:shana. 'Abandon all dharmas and take refuge in Me alone; I shall release you from every sin — do not grieve,' I spoke to Arjuna. Both are My own words, and both are true.

Therefore, without fear and without doubt, rest in the certainty that you will truly know Me, see Me, and come to Me."

Lord — should remembrance of You be required at the last breath, take this present prayer, offered now, in its place. Accept me then as You accept me now.

Thus ends the Saranagati Gadyam of Bhagavad Ramanuja.