THE REGIONAL KINGDOMS OF EARLY MEDIEVAL INDIAparticular sects within the Hindu fold. Shiva, Vishnu or the goddess were
worshipped as the highest god by their respective devotees. The Shivites
tended to be in sympathy with Shankara’s monism; the Vaishnavites, on
the other hand, emphasised the reality of this world as a manifestation of
the divine will.
The most important representative of the new Vaishnavite school of
thought was Ramanuja, who lived in Tamil Nadu around 1100. He
combined Shankara’s Advaita philosophy with the Vaishnava Pancharatra
theology, the latter claiming that Vishnu is the very foundation of the
universe. This philosophy became the doctrine of the Shri Vaishnavas.
Ramanuja advocated a ‘qualified monism’ (vishishthadvaita), according to
which god is all-encompassing and eternal but not undifferentiated. The
individual souls (cit) and inanimate matter (acit) are his divine ‘qualities’
(vishishtha) and thus both real and divine. The individual souls are at once
one with god and separate from him. Salvation consists of a unification
(sayujya) of the soul with god. This can be achieved only by leading a
virtuous life and acquiring knowledge of the secret of differentiation by
which the individual soul is kept apart from god. The final consummation
of this spiritual marriage is possible only by means of devotion (bhakti)
and by the grace of god.
Thus Ramanuja reconciled the Brahmin doctrine of right conduct, as
well as metaphysical speculation, with the fervour of the popular Bhakti
movement. In this way he also provided a justification for a process which
had been going on for some time: the conversion of Brahmin intellectuals
to the ideas of the Bhakti movement. The impact of Ramanuja’s writings
and his long service as head priest of the famous Vishnu temple at
Srirangam made his ideas widely known among the Vaishnavites and he is
justly regarded as the founder of Shri Vaishnavism. It is no accident that
Ramanuja’s message was spread at the time when Bhakti centres of
pilgrimage emerged everywhere in South and Central India, with kings and
princes building temples in such places so as to convert them into veritable
temple cities.
The cults of Krishna and ShivaThe further development of Vaishnavism is characterised by the rise of the
Krishna cult. Krishna was no longer regarded as only one of the
incarnations (avatara) of Vishnu, but as the highest god himself. The
Bhagavata Purana, perhaps the greatest of all Puranas, which was
composed in the tenth or eleventh century, was devoted to this elevation of
Krishna. The mysticism of the Krishna cult found its most vivid expression
in the poet Jayadeva’s Gitagovinda, composed around 1200 either in
Bengal or Orissa. The poet describes in emotional and erotic terms the love
of Radha and Krishna. The quest of the soul (Radha) for the unification