Madhvas.

Madhva Acharya, another distinguished Vedanta teacher and founder of a Vaishnava sect, born in Kanara in A.D. 1199, was less intolerant of the Linga cult than Ramanuja, but seems rather to have aimed at a reconciliation of the Saiva and Vaishnava forms of worship. The Madhvas or Madhvacharis favour Krishna and his consort as their special objects of adoration, whilst images of Siva, Parvati, and their son Ganesa are, however, likewise admitted and worshipped in some of their temples, the most important of which is at Udipi in South Kanara, with eight monasteries connected with it. This shrine contains an image of Krishna which is said to have been rescued from the wreck of a ship which brought it from Dvaraka, where it was supposed to have been set up of old by no other than Krishna's friend Arjuna, one of the five Pandava princes. Followers of the Madhva creed are but rarely met with in Upper India. Their sectarial mark is like the U of the Sri-Vaishnavas, except that their central line is black instead of red or yellow. Madhva--who after his initiation assumed the name Anandatirtha--composed numerous Sanskrit works, including commentaries on the Brahma sutras (i.e. the Vedanta aphorisms), the Gita, the Rigveda and many Upanishads. His philosophical theory was a dualistic one, postulating distinctness of nature for the divine and the human soul, and hence independent existence, instead of absorption, after the completion of mundane existence.

Ramats.

The Ramanandis or Ramavats (popularly Ramats) are a numerous northern sect of similar tenets to those of the Ramanujas. Indeed its founder, Ramananda, who probably flourished in the latter part of the 14th century, according to the traditional account, was originally a Sri-Vaishnava monk, and, having come under the suspicion of laxity in observing the strict rules of food during his peregrinations, and been ordered by his superior (Mahant) to take his meals apart from his brethren, left the monastery in a huff and set up a schismatic math of his own at Benares. The sectarial mark of his sect differs but slightly from that of the parent stock. The distinctive features of their creed consist in their making Rama and Sita, either singly or conjointly, the chief objects of their adoration, instead of Vishnu and Lakshmi, and their attaching little or no importance to the observance of privacy in the cooking and eating of their food. Their mendicant members, usually known as Vairagis, are, like the general body of the sect, drawn from all castes without distinction. Thus, the founder's twelve chief disciples include, besides Brahmans, a weaver, a currier, a Rajput, a Jat and a barber--for, they argue, seeing that Bhagavan, the Holy One (Vishnu), became incarnate even in animal form, a Bhakta (believer) may be born even in the lowest of castes. Ramananda's teaching was thus of a distinctly levelling and popular character; and, in accordance therewith, the Bhakta-mala and other authoritative writings of the sect are composed, not in Sanskrit, but in the popular dialects. A follower of this creed was the distinguished poet Tulsidas, the composer of the beautiful Hindi version of the Ramayana and other works which "exercise more influence upon the great body of Hindu population than the whole voluminous series of Sanskrit composition" (H. H. Wilson).

Kabir.

The traditional list of Ramananda's immediate disciples includes the name of Kabir, the weaver, a remarkable man who would accordingly have lived in the latter part of the 15th century, and who is claimed by both Hindus and Moslems as having been born within their fold. The story goes that, having been deeply impressed by Ramananda's teaching, he sought to attach himself to him; and, one day at Benares, in stepping down the ghat at daybreak to bathe in the Ganges, and putting himself in the way of the teacher, the latter, having inadvertently struck him with his foot, uttered his customary exclamation "Ram Ram," which, being also the initiatory formula of the sect, was claimed by Kabir as such, making him Ramananda's disciple. Be this as it may, Kabir's own reformatory activity lay in the direction of a compromise between the Hindu and the Mahommedan creeds, the religious practices of both of which he criticized with equal severity. His followers, the Kabir Panthis ("those following Kabir's path"), though neither worshipping the gods of the pantheon, nor observing the rites and ceremonial of the Hindus, are nevertheless in close touch with the Vaishnava sects, especially the Ramavats, and generally worship Rama as the supreme deity, when they do not rather address their homage, in hymns and otherwise, to the founder of their creed himself. Whilst very numerous, particularly amongst the low-caste population, in western, central and northern India, resident adherents of Kabir's doctrine are rare in Bengal and the south; although "there is hardly a town in India where strolling beggars may not be found singing songs of Kabir in the original or as translated into the local dialects." The mendicants of this creed, however, never actually solicit alms; and, indeed, "the quaker-like spirit of the sect, their abhorrence of all violence, their regard for truth and the inobtrusiveness of their opinions render them very inoffensive members of the state" (H. H. Wilson). The doctrines of Kabir are taught, mostly in the form of dialogues, in numerous Hindi works, composed by his disciples and adherents, who, however, usually profess to give the teacher's own words.

The peculiar conciliatory tendencies of Kabir were carried on with even greater zeal from the latter part of the 15th century by one of his followers, Nanak Shah, the promulgator of the creed of the Nanak Shahis or Sikhs--i.e. (Sanskr.) sishya, disciples, whose guru, or teacher, he called himself--a peaceful sect at first until, in consequence of Mahommedan persecution, a martial spirit was infused into it by the tenth, and last, guru, Govind Shah, changing it into a political organization. Whilst originally more akin in its principles to the Moslem faith, the sect seems latterly to have shown tendencies towards drifting back to the Hindu pale.

Of Ramananda's disciples and successors several others, besides Kabir, have established schismatic divisions of their own, which do not, however, offer any very marked differences of creed. The most important of these, the Dadu Panthi sect, founded by Dadu about the year 1600, has a numerous following in Ajmir and Marwar, one section of whom, the Nagas, engage largely in military service, whilst the others are either householders or mendicants. The followers of this creed wear no distinctive sectarial mark or badge, except a skull-cap; nor do they worship any visible image of any deity, the repetition (japa) of the name of Rama being the only kind of adoration practised by them.

Eroticism and Krishna worship.

Although the Vaishnava sects hitherto noticed, in their adoration of Vishnu and his incarnations, Krishna and Ramachandra, usually associate with these gods their wives, as their saktis, or female energies, the sexual element is, as a rule, only just allowed sufficient scope to enhance the emotional character of the rites of worship. In some of the later Vaishnava creeds, on the other hand, this element is far from being kept within the bounds of moderation and decency. The favourite object of adoration with adherents of these sects is Krishna with his mate--but not the devoted friend and counsellor of the Pandavas and deified hero of epic song, nor the ruler of Dvaraka and wedded lord of Rukmini, but the juvenile Krishna, Govinda or Bala Gopala, "the cowherd lad," the foster son of the cowherd Nanda of Gokula, taken up with his amorous sports with the Gopis, or wives of the cowherds of Vrindavana (Brindaban, near Mathura on the Yamuna), especially his favourite mistress Radha or Radhika. This episode in the legendary life of Krishna has every appearance of being a later accretion. After barely a few allusions to it in the epics, it bursts forth full-blown in the Harivansa, the Vishnu-purana, the Narada-Pancharatra and the Bhagavata-purana, the tenth canto of which, dealing with the life of Krishna, has become, through vernacular versions, especially the Hindi Prem-sagar, or "ocean of love," a favourite romance all over India, and has doubtless helped largely to popularize the cult of Krishna. Strange to say, however, no mention is as yet made by any of these works of Krishna's favourite Radha; it is only in another Purana--though scarcely deserving that designation--that she makes her appearance, viz. in the Brahma-vaivarta, in which Krishna's amours in Nanda's cow-station are dwelt upon in fulsome and wearisome detail; whilst the poet Jayadeva, in the 12th century, made her love for the gay and inconstant boy the theme of his beautiful, if highly voluptuous, lyrical drama, Gita-govinda.

The earliest of the sects which associate Radha with Krishna in their worship is that of the Nimavats, founded by Nimbaditya or Nimbarka (i.e. "the sun of the Nimba tree"), a teacher of uncertain date, said to have been a Telugu Brahman who subsequently established himself at Mathura (Muttra) on the Yamuna, where the headquarters of his sect have remained ever since. The Mahant of their monastery at Dhruva Kshetra near Mathura, who claims direct descent from Nimbarka, is said to place the foundation of that establishment as far back as the 5th century--doubtless an exaggerated claim; but if Jayadeva, as is alleged, and seems by no means improbable, was really a follower of Nimbarka, this teacher must have flourished, at latest, in the early part of the 12th century. He is indeed taken by some authorities to be identical with the mathematician Bhaskara Acharya, who is known to have completed his chief work in A.D. 1150. It is worthy of remark, in this respect, that--in accordance with Ramanuja's and Nimbarka's philosophical theories--Jayadeva's presentation of Krishna's fickle love for Radha is usually interpreted in a mystical sense, as allegorically depicting the human soul's striving, through love, for reunion with God, and its ultimate attainment, after many backslidings, of the longed-for goal. As the chief authority of their tenets, the Nimavats recognize the Bhagavata-purana; though several works, ascribed to Nimbarka--partly of a devotional character and partly expository of Vedanta topics--are still extant. Adherents of this sect are fairly numerous in northern India, their frontal mark consisting of the usual two perpendicular white lines, with, however, a circular black spot between them.