MAY, 1874.]
THE TWO SEOTS OF VAISHNAVAS.
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NOTES ON THE TWO SECTS OF THE VAISHNAVAS IN THE MADRAS PRESIDENCY.
BY THE REV. CH. EGBERT KENNET, VEPERY, MADRAS.
THE worshippers of Vishnu are designated V a i s h n a v a s , but this name comprises a great variety of sects, who while assigning to V i shn n a supremacy over the other gods of the Trimfirti, yet differ among themselves in the religious and other practices founded on the nature of their belief, and in their use of the sectarian mark. These differences, as described
by the late Professor Wilson in his Sketch of the Religious Seals of the Hindus, relate mostly to the V aish n a vas of Northern India. But in this Presidency the Vaishnavas are divided into two great parties, known as the Vadakalai and T enkalai,orthe Northern
grasps its mother to be conveyed to safety, and represents the hold of the soul on God. The latter use the eat-argument, the mdrjlila nydya, which is expressive of the hold of God on the soul; for the kitten is helpless until the mother cat seizes it nolens volens and secures it from danger. No two analogies can better illustrate the difference of opinion between the Calvinists and Arminians of Christian Europe: and the very existence of the facts suggesting the ana logies may be suggestive of the possible har mony of difficulties inreligion, according to some secret law unknown to us, when the same or similar ones are found to exist in nature, if
learning and the Southern learning or doctrine. This division of the V a i s h n a v a s is said to have been occasioned mainly through Vedanta Tesikar, a Briihman of Conjeveram, who is re ported to have lived about six hundred years ago, and laid claim to a divine commission to re form the customs of Southern Brz'ihmans, and to restore the old Northern rules and traditions. While both the sects acknowledge the Sans
both religion and nature own one and the same Author. It may be interesting to notice here how abstruse polemical arguments filter down and enter into the common life of the people of a country. For the late Major M. W. Carr, who was an unobtrusive but highly accomplished Oriental scholar, inserts in his large collection of Telugu and Sanskrit Proverbs the two follow
krit books to be authoritative, the V a d a k a l a i
ing :—
uses them to a greater extent than the T en k a l a i. The former also recognizes and ac knowledges the female energy as well as the male, though not in the gross and sensual form in which it is worshipped among the Saivas, but as being the feminine aspect of deity, and repre senting the grace and merciful care of Provi dence ; while the T e n k a la i excludes its agency in general, and, inconsistently enough, allows it
co-operation in the final salvation of a human soul. But the most curious difference between the two schools is that relating to human salva tion itself, and is a reproduction in Indian minds of the European controversy between Calvinists and Arminians. For the adherents of the V a d a k a 1 ai strongly insist on the con eomitaney 0f the human will for securing salva tion, whereas those of the T e n k a1 ai maintain the i'rresist'ibility of divine grace in human sal vation. The arguments from analogy used by the two parties respectively are, however, pecu liarly Indian in character. The former adopt what is called the mrmkey-argument, the ma-rkuta nyd'ya : for the young monkey holds on to or
No. 304-. The monkey and its cub. As the cub clings to its mother, so man seeks
divine aid, and clings to his God. The doctrine of the Vadakaluis . No. 313. Like the cat and her kitten. The stronger carrying and protecting the weaker; used to illustrate the free grace of God. The doctrine of the T e n k a l a i s.-——pp. 442, 4-4-4.
Leaving the speculative differences between these two sects, I have now to mention the practical one which divides them, and which
has been, and continues to be, the principal cause of the fierce contentions and long-drawn law suits between them. And this relates to the exact mode of making the sectarian mark on, the forehead. While both sects wear a represen tation of Vishnu‘s trident, composed of red or yellow for the middle line or prong of the tri dent, and of white earth called nmna for those on each side, the followers of the V a d a k a l ai draw the middle line only down to the bridge
of the nose, but those of the T e n k a lai draw it over the bridge a little way down the nose
itself.*
' See page 136.
Each party maintain that their mode of
