Ra ̄mada ̄sa (1608–81), an ascetic follower of the Va ̄rakarı ̄pantha, founded his
own tradition (the Ra ̄mada ̄sasamprada ̄ya) and became the preceptor of king
S ́iva ̄jı ̄. Va ̄rakarı ̄ Sants consider the god Vit.t.hala of Pandharpur as “father and
mother” and often address him as a loving mother. According to the followers
of the Va ̄rakarı ̄pantha this image of Vit.t.hala is the very form (svaru ̄pa) of Vis.n.u-
Kr.s.n.a (Vaudeville 1987a: 28–9; see chapter 9).
By contrast with the above Marathi poet-saints who were Vais.n.ava devotees,
the “Northern Sants,” from the northwestern states of Panjab and Rajasthan
and the Hindi-speaking area, are generally associated with devotion to a form-
less God conceived as being beyond the three gun.asofsattva,tamas, and rajas
(nirgun.abhakti) and with the notion of nonduality of the individual soul with
God. But at least three of these “Northern Sants,” Ra ̄ma ̄nanda, Da ̄du ̄, and
Harida ̄sa, are considered by traditions distinctly Vais.n.ava as their founders.
The most basic details of Ra ̄ma ̄nanda’s life remain unknown. Modern schol-
arship tends to assign him to the fifteenth century (Pollet 1980: 142). Hagio-
graphy records that he reconverted to Hinduism persons who had previously
been converted by force to Islam, and recruited women and intouchable castes
in the tradition which bears his name and which enjoins devotion to Ra ̄ma.
However, it is not even sure that he founded that tradition (Burghart 1978).
Ra ̄ma ̄nanda is attributed not only with a number of poems in the vernacular but
also with several texts in Sanskrit. Most of the often undatable texts of this tra-
dition are written in northern Indian languages, not in Sanskrit (Burghart
1978: 121, 124–5).
Special mention must be made in this context of the Bhaktama ̄la which
Na ̄bha ̄da ̄sa (or Na ̄bha ̄jı ̄) of the Ra ̄ma ̄nanda tradition composed in the late
sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries (Burghart 1978: 129; Pollet 1980:
142). This important text, very rich in hagiographical stories, declares that
Ra ̄ma ̄nanda was the disciple of Ra ̄ghava ̄nanda, himself an indirect disciple
of Ra ̄ma ̄nuja (stanza 35), a statement which remains unproven.^1 It also de-
clares that Hari (Vis.n.u) manifested himself as four vyu ̄has in this Kaliyuga:
S ́rı ̄ra ̄ma ̄nuja, Vis.n.usva ̄min, Madhva ̄ca ̄raja (=Madhva=Madhukara in stanza 29),
and Nimba ̄ditya (=Nimba ̄rka), each having established a “samprada ̄ya” (28),
named respectively Janma, Karma, Bha ̄gavata, and Dharma. The paddhatis
(“paths”) – Rama ̄-, Tripura ̄ri-, Mukhaca ̄ri-, and Sanaka ̄dika ̄- – belong respec-
tively to these four samprada ̄yas(29). Sindhuja ̄ (another name of S ́rı ̄) is called
thesamprada ̄yas ́iroman.i, the “summit of the samprada ̄ya” to which Ra ̄ma ̄nuja and
others belonged (30). Na ̄ma (=Na ̄madeva of the Va ̄rakarı ̄pantha?) and Vallabha
are said to belong to the Vis.n.usva ̄misamprada ̄ya (48).
The nineteenth-century followers of Ra ̄ma ̄nanda were called Ra ̄ma ̄nujı ̄s and
claimed to be under the authority of the head of the S ́rı ̄vais.n.ava Ten
̄
kalai
monastery of Vanamamalai. But in the early twentieth century, the Ra ̄ma ̄nanda
tradition no longer traced its historical origin to S ́rı ̄samprada ̄ya which corre-
sponds to the tradition of Ra ̄ma ̄nuja, but designated itself as Ra ̄ma ̄nanda-
samprada ̄ya (Burghart 1978: 133; Clémentin-Ojha 1999: 74). In about the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the tradition combined a devotional and a
history of vais.n.ava traditions 257