These inscriptions demonstrate the influence of Pa ̄ñcara ̄tra in this part of
southeast Asia as early as the seventh century, that is, not much later than the
composition of the oldest known Pa ̄ñcara ̄tra sam.hita ̄s. Pa ̄ñcara ̄tra rituals and
doctrine often inspired such systems as Vis ́is.t.a ̄dvaita, Dvaita, and later Vais.n.ava
schools. Important Pa ̄ñcara ̄tra texts were still being written in India in the
seventeenth century (Matsubara 1994: 34–5).
Vaikha ̄nasa corpus of temple rituals
By contrast with the influential Pa ̄ñcara ̄tra corpus, Vaikha ̄nasa scriptures, their
su ̄tras, and the texts which govern their temple rites (here called “medieval
corpus” for the sake of convenience), remained comparatively less known to
non-Vaikha ̄nasas. This may be partly due to the fact that the Vaikha ̄nasa tradi-
tion was reputed as a Vedic s ́a ̄kha ̄and not as a group to which one adhered
through initiation. Nevertheless it greatly contributed to the growth of public
temple worship in South India before the reforms of Ra ̄ma ̄nuja who is said to
have favored the Pa ̄ñcara ̄tra method of worship.
The evolution of the Vaikha ̄nasa community from its renunciative traits to
professional priesthood practicing temple rites aiming at the prosperity of the
society is not well known. It appears in a Karnataka copper-plate dated 828 ad
that Vaikha ̄nasas also worshipped non-Vais.n.ava deities: this inscription men-
tions that a Vaikha ̄nasa named Devas ́arman of the Ka ̄s ́yapa clan was commis-
sioned to worship the image of a sword-bearing goddess for King Ra ̄jamalla II.
Later south Indian inscriptions (especially from the eleventh century onwards),
however, record Vaikha ̄nasas as priests in Vais.n.ava temples. One of them, an edict
of the Co ̄l
̄
a King Ra ̄jara ̄ja I, applicable to Co ̄l
̄a, Ton.t.ai, and Pa ̄n.d.ya regions, allows
villagers to confiscate and sell properties on which Vaikha ̄nasas (among others)
have not paid due taxes, thus indicating the affluence of the Vaikha ̄nasas of that
period. Epigraphic evidence attests that in the eleventh to twelfth centuries the
Vaikha ̄nasa tradition was considered both as a Vedic s ́a ̄kha ̄and reputed for the
architectural and iconographic teachings of its scriptures (Colas 1996: 58–64).
The main part or totality of the medieval corpus of Vaikha ̄nasas was proba-
bly composed in a rather short period between ninth and thirteenth/fourteenth
centuries, that is, much later than their su ̄tras. Vaikha ̄nasas considered it as a
continuation with their su ̄tracorpus and forming with it what they call the
Vaikha ̄nasas ́a ̄stra. Its designation by the late expression “Vaikha ̄nasa ̄gama” is
anachronistic. Vaikha ̄nasa tradition lists as many as 28 texts in the medieval
corpus and attributes them to Vikhanas’s four disciples: Bhr.gu, Ka ̄s ́yapa, Atri,
and Marı ̄ci, and sometimes to a fifth author, An.giras, also often identified with
Marı ̄ci. By 1997 nine texts of the corpus and the corresponding collection of
mantras were published fully or in part.
Though the published texts mainly deal with ritual, they also provide some
gnostic and theological teaching. The Vima ̄na ̄rcana ̄kalpa contains a complete
history of vais.n.ava traditions 241