Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
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By the fourteenth c entury the Srivaisnava sec t had split into two subsec ts,
eac h trac ing a different line of teac hers bac k to Ramanuja. The sc hism c entred on a
difference in interpretation of prapatti, wit h bot h sc hools appealing to Ramanuja’s
writings in support of their view; the dispute was over the question of human effort
versus divine grac e in ac hieving salvation, a c ontroversy often and not
unreasonably c ompared to the Arminian and Calvinist standpoints within
Protestantism. The Northern sc hool held that the worshipper had to make some
effort to win the grace of the Lord and emphasised the performance of karma, a
position c ommonly summed up as being ‘on the analogy of the monkey and its
young’, for as the monkey c arries her young whic h c ling to her body so Visnu saves
the worshipper who himself makes an effort. The Southern sc hool held that the
Lord’s grac e it self c onferred salvat ion, a posit ion ‘on t he analogy of t he c at and it s
kittens’, for just as the c at pic ks up her kittens in her mouth and c arries them off
willy-nilly, so Visnu saves whom he wills, wit hout effort on t heir part.
There are in fac t other issues whic h are probably just as basic as this doc trinal
point. In general the Southern sc hool is more liberal than the Northern, having a
definite preference for the use of Tamil (whereas the Northern school reverted to
the more traditional Sanskrit) and teac hing the same mantra to all castes (whereas
the Northern sc hool distinguished between Brahmans and others). In addit ion t he
Nort hern sc hool believes t hat Laksmi, as well as Visnu, is c apable of grant ing
liberation, a somewhat tantric view owed to the Pancaratra tradition; in contrast
the Southern sc hool c onsidered her to be always subordinate to Visnu, the first of
dependent beings but nevertheless dependent. The more traditional attitudes of the
Nort hern sc hool are apparent in t he writ ings of Vedant adesika (t radit ionally 1268–
1367), with their many referenc es to c aste and c aste duty; there is obvious c onc ern
that the egalitarianism of the Alvars, reinforc ed by Ramanuja’s introduc tion of the
Panc aratra ritual, was undermining the soc ial order. Both he and the c ontemporary
leader of the Southern school were forced to flee by the Muslim sack of the temple
a n d t h e c o mme mo rated by shrines in the eventually restored temple (although
Ramanuja’s reforms were abandoned after its restoration).