The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hindusim vol 2

Shrishaila
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traces its spiritual lineage through the
poet-saint Ramananda to the southern
Indian philosopher Ramanuja, who is
claimed to have been Ramananda’s guru.
This claim can also be seen in the name
of the sampraday, since Ramanuja’s followers,
the Shrivaishnavas, focus their
worship on Vishnu and Shri (Lakshmi).
Yet the Ramanandi ascetics worship an
entirely different pair of deities—Rama
and Sita—and the claim of any connections
between the Ramanandis and the
Shrivaishnavas was formally renounced
at the Ujjain Kumbha Mela in 1921, at
the insistence of the Shrivaishnavas. As
with another Bairagi order, the Brahma
Sampraday, the claim to be connected
to a famous religious figure seems to be
a way to gain the authority and prestige
of an ancient and established tradition.
Even without this claim, the Shri
Sampraday is the largest and the most
important of the Bairagi Naga orders.
For further information see Peter van
der Veer, Gods on Earth, 1988.
Shrishaila
(“holy mountain”) Sacred mountain in
the center of the state of Andhra
Pradesh, about 185 miles south and
slightly east of Hyderabad. The site is
remote and difficult to reach but is
famous for a temple sacred to the god
Shiva, in his manifestation as Mallikarjuna,
“[Lord] White as Jasmine.”
Shiva’s image as Mallikarjuna is in the
form of a linga, the pillar-shaped image
that is his symbolic form, and the
Mallikarjuna linga is one of the twelve
jyotirlingas, a network of sites deemed
especially sacred to Shiva, and at which
Shiva is uniquely present.
Shrivaishnava
Southern Indian religious community
who are devotees (bhakta) of the god
Vishnu and Shri (Lakshmi), and whose
religious life is rooted in the devotional
hymns of the Alvars, a group of twelve
poet-saints who lived in southern
India between the seventh and tenth
centuries. All the Alvars were devotees of
Vishnu, and their stress on passionate
devotion (bhakti) to a personal god,
conveyed through hymns sung in the
Tamil language, transformed and revitalized
Hindu religious life. Two centuries
later, the Alvars’ devotional outpouring
was organized and systematized
by the philosopher Ramanuja,
considered the Shrivaishnava founder.
Ramanuja was convinced that Brahman,
or Supreme Reality, was a personal
deity, rather than an impersonal
abstract principle, and was also convinced
that devotion was the most
important form of religious practice.
Vishishthadvaita Vedanta, his philosophical
position, stressed both of these
convictions, and thus opposed the
Advaita Vedanta school founded by the
philosopher Shankaracharya, which
stressed that the Supreme Being was
impersonal and that realization (jnana)
was the best spiritual path. In the time
after Ramanuja the Shrivaishnava community
split into two smaller groups, the
Tengalai and the Vadagalai. The schism
stemmed from a disagreement over
whether human action was necessary to
attain final liberation, or whether the
hope came in complete surrender (prapatti)
to God’s grace; the Vadagalais held
the former position, and the Tengalais
the latter.
In practice, the Shrivaishnava community
has been strongly influenced by
the doctrine of divine “emanations”
originated by the Pancharatra religious
community, particularly the notion that
a properly consecrated image becomes
a form of the deity itself. Shrivaishnava
piety has tended to center around
temples, and particularly the service of
the temple’s image, which is considered
a genuine form of the deity. Given
this stress on learning and templebased
worship, it is not surprising
that the community has been dominated
by brahmins, and the few nonbrahmins
in the community have
distinctly inferior status. For further
information see K. Rangachari, The
Sri Vaisnava Brahmans, 1931; and