The qualified monism of Ramanuja (as his system is sometimes called) led to more uncompromising treatment of the question and to the affirmation of dualism, not the dualism of God and the Devil but the distinctness of the soul and of matter from God.  This is the doctrine of Madhva, another southern teacher who lived about a century after Ramanuja and was perhaps directly influenced by Islam.  But though the logical outcome of his teaching may appear to be simple theism analogous to Islam or Judaism, it does not in practice lead to this result but rather to the worship of Krishna.  Madhva’s sect is still important but even more important is another branch of the spiritual family of Ramanuja, starting from Ramanand who probably flourished in the fourteenth century[28].

Ramanuja, while in some ways accepting innovations, insisted on the strict observance of caste.  Ramanand abandoned this, separated from his sect and removed to Benares.  His teaching marks a turning-point in the history of modern Hinduism.  Firstly he held that caste need not prevent a man from rightly worshipping God and he admitted even Moslims as members of his community.  To this liberality are directly traceable the numerous sects combining Hindu with Mohammedan doctrines, among which the Kabir Panthis and the Sikhs are the most conspicuous.  But it is a singular testimony to the tenacity of Hindu ideas that though many teachers holding most diverse opinions have declared there is no caste before God, yet caste has generally reasserted itself among their followers as a social if not as a religious institution.  The second important point in Ramanand’s teaching was the use of the vernacular for religious literature.  Dravidian scriptures had already been recognized in the south but it is from this time that there begins to flow in the north that great stream of sacred poetry in Hindi and Bengali which waters the roots of modern popular Hinduism.  Among many eminent names which have contributed to it, the greatest is Tulsi Das who retold the Ramayana in Hindi and thus wrote a poem which is little less than a Bible for millions in the Ganges valley.

The sects which derive from the teaching of Ramanand mostly worship the Supreme Being under the name of Rama.  Even more numerous, especially in the north, are those who use the name of Krishna, the other great incarnation of Vishnu.  This worship was organized and extended by the preaching of Vallabha and Caitanya (c. 1500) in the valley of the Ganges and Bengal, but was not new.  I shall discuss in some detail below the many elements combined in the complex figure of Krishna but in one way or another he was connected with the earliest forms of Vishnuite monotheism and is the chief figure in the Bhagavad-gita, its earliest text-book.  Legend connects him partly with Muttra and partly with western India but, though by no means ignored in southern India, he does not receive there such definite and exclusive adoration as in the north.  The Krishnaite sects are emotional, and their favourite doctrine that the relation between God and the soul is typified by passionate love has led to dubious moral results.