Yāmunācārya (Ālavandār)

Yāmunācārya ('Ālavandār,' 'one who came to rule') was the grandson of Nāthamuni and the leading Śrī Vaiṣṇava teacher of his generation, based at Śrīraṅgam. According to tradition he began as a brilliant young debater who won royal patronage, then renounced worldly life to lead the community. His philosophical writings — the Siddhitraya (three treatises on self, God, and reality), the Āgamaprāmāṇya (defending the authority of the Pāñcarātra Āgamas), the Gītārthasaṃgraha, and the devotional Stotraratna — articulated the qualified-non-dualist position that Rāmānuja would systematize. Famously, he died (c. 1038, traditional) before he could meet the young Rāmānuja; tradition holds Rāmānuja vowed to fulfill three of his unfinished wishes. His traditional birth-to-death span (c. 916/918–1038) is implausibly long and should be read as approximate.