[Footnote 561:  The use of the Linga by this sect supports the view that even in its origin the symbol is not exclusively phallic.]

[Footnote 562:  Their creed is said to have been the state religion of the Wodeyars of Mysore (1399-1600) and of the Nayaks of Keladi, Ikken or Bednur (1550-1763).]

[Footnote 563:  At Kadur, Ujjeni, Benares, Srisailam and Kedarnath in the Himalayas.  In every Lingayat village there is a monastery affiliated to one of these five establishments.  The great importance attached to monastic institutions is perhaps due to Jain influence.]

CHAPTER XXIX

VISHNUISM IN SOUTH INDIA

1

Though Sivaism can boast of an imposing array of temples, teachers and scriptures in the north as well as in the south, yet Vishnuism was equally strong and after 1000 A.D. perhaps stronger.  Thus Alberuni writing about north-western India in 1030 A.D. mentions Siva and Durga several times incidentally but devotes separate chapters to Narayana and Vasudeva; he quotes copiously from Vishnuite works[564] but not from sectarian Sivaite books.  He mentions that the worshippers of Vishnu are called Bhagavatas and he frequently refers to Rama.  It is clear that in giving an account of Vishnuism he considered that he had for all practical purposes described the religion of the parts of India which he knew.

In their main outlines the histories of Vishnuism and Sivaism are the same.  Both faiths first assumed a definite form in northern India, but both flourished exceedingly when transplanted to the south and produced first a school of emotional hymn writers and then in a maturer stage a goodly array of theologians and philosophers as well as offshoots in the form of eccentric sects which broke loose from Brahmanism altogether.  But Vishnuism having first spread from the north to the south returned from the south to the north in great force, whereas the history of Sivaism shows no such reflux.[565] Sivaism remained comparatively homogeneous, but Vishnuism gave birth from the eleventh century onwards to a series of sects or Churches still extant and forming exclusive though not mutually hostile associations.  The chief Churches or Sampradayas bear the names of Sanakadi, Sri, Brahma and Rudra.  The first three were founded by Nimbaditya, Ramanuja and Madhva respectively.  The Rudra-sampradaya was rendered celebrated by Vallabha, though he was not its founder.

The belief and practice of all Vishnuite sects alike is a modified monotheism, the worship of the Supreme Being under some such name as Rama or Vasudeva.  But the monotheism is not perfect.  On the one hand it passes into pantheism:  on the other it is not completely disengaged from mythology and in all sects the consort and attendants of the deity receive great respect, even if this respect is theoretically distinguished from adoration.  Nearly all sects