t rather to the
worship of Krishna. Madhva's sect is still important but even more
important is another branch of the spiritual family of Ramanuja,
starting from Ramanand who probably flourished in the fourteenth
century[28].

Ramanuja, while in some ways accepting innovations, insisted on the
strict observance of caste. Ramanand abandoned this, separated from his
sect and removed to Benares. His teaching marks a turning-point in the
history of modern Hinduism. Firstly he held that caste need not prevent
a man from rightly worshipping God and he admitted even Moslims as
members of his community. To this liberality are directly traceable the
numerous sects combining Hindu with Mohammedan doctrines, among which
the Kabir Panthis and the Sikhs are the most conspicuous. But it is a
singular testimony to the tenacity of Hindu ideas that though many
teachers holding most diverse opinions have declared there is no caste
before God, yet caste has generally reasserted itself among their
followers as a social if not as a religious institution. The second
important point in Ramanand's teaching was the use of the vernacular for
religious literature. Dravidian scriptures had already been recognized
in the south but it is from this time that there begins to flow in the
north that great stream of sacred poetry in Hindi and Bengali which
waters the roots of modern popular Hinduism. Among many eminent names
which have contributed to it, the greatest is Tulsi Das who retold the
Ramayana in Hindi and thus wrote a poem which is little less than a
Bible for millions in the Ganges valley.

The sects which derive from the teaching of Ramanand mostly worship the
Supreme Being under the name of Rama. Even more numerous, especially in
the north, are those who use the name of Krishna, the other great
incarnation of Vishnu. This worship was organized and extended by the
preaching of Vallabha and Caitanya (c. 1500) in the valley of the Ganges
and Bengal, but was not new. I shall discuss in some detail below the
many elements combined in the complex figure of Krishna but in one way
or another he was connected with the earliest forms of Vishnuite
monotheism and is the chief figure in the Bhagavad-gita, its earliest
text-book. Legend connects him partly with Muttra and partly with
western India but, though by no means ignored in southern India, he does
not receive there such definite and exclusive adoration as in the north.
The Krishnaite sects are