llage there is a monastery
affiliated to one of these five establishments. The great importance
attached to monastic institutions is perhaps due to Jain influence.]

CHAPTER XXIX

VISHNUISM IN SOUTH INDIA

1

Though Sivaism can boast of an imposing array of temples, teachers and
scriptures in the north as well as in the south, yet Vishnuism was
equally strong and after 1000 A.D. perhaps stronger. Thus Alberuni
writing about north-western India in 1030 A.D. mentions Siva and Durga
several times incidentally but devotes separate chapters to Narayana
and Vasudeva; he quotes copiously from Vishnuite works[564] but not
from sectarian Sivaite books. He mentions that the worshippers of
Vishnu are called Bhagavatas and he frequently refers to Rama. It is
clear that in giving an account of Vishnuism he considered that he had
for all practical purposes described the religion of the parts of
India which he knew.

In their main outlines the histories of Vishnuism and Sivaism are the
same. Both faiths first assumed a definite form in northern India, but
both flourished exceedingly when transplanted to the south and
produced first a school of emotional hymn writers and then in a
maturer stage a goodly array of theologians and philosophers as well
as offshoots in the form of eccentric sects which broke loose from
Brahmanism altogether. But Vishnuism having first spread from the
north to the south returned from the south to the north in great
force, whereas the history of Sivaism shows no such reflux.[565]
Sivaism remained comparatively homogeneous, but Vishnuism gave birth
from the eleventh century onwards to a series of sects or Churches
still extant and forming exclusive though not mutually hostile
associations. The chief Churches or Sampradayas bear the names of
Sanakadi, Sri, Brahma and Rudra. The first three were founded by
Nimbaditya, Ramanuja and Madhva respectively. The Rudra-sampradaya was
rendered celebrated by Vallabha, though he was not its founder.

The belief and practice of all Vishnuite sects alike is a modified
monotheism, the worship of the Supreme Being under some such name as
Rama or Vasudeva. But the monotheism is not perfect. On the one hand
it passes into pantheism: on the other it is not completely disengaged
from mythology and in all sects the consort and attendants of the
deity receive great respect, even if this respect is theoretically
distinguished from adoration. Nearly all sects reject