personalities and their sons are Brahma the creator and Vayu.[599] Peculiar to this sect is the doctrine that except through Vayu, the son of Vishnu, salvation is impossible.  Vayu has been three times incarnate as Hanumat, the helper of Rama, as Bhima and as Madhva himself.[600] Souls are separate, innumerable and related to God as subjects to a king.  They are of three classes:  those who are destined to eternal bliss in the presence of God:  those who revolve eternally in the maze of transmigration:  and those who tending ever downwards are doomed to eternal suffering.

This last doctrine, as well as the doctrine of salvation through Vayu, the wind or spirit, has led many to suspect that Madhva was influenced by Christian ideas, but it is more probable that he owed something to Islam.  Such influence would no doubt be distant and indirect, for a Brahman would not come into contact with Moslim doctors, though it is said that Madhva could speak Persian.[601] But some Moslim ideas such as the absolute separation of God from the world and the predestination of souls to eternal happiness and misery may have entered Brahman minds.  Still, nearly all Madhva’s views (with the possible exception of eternal punishment) have Indian analogies.  The Yoga teaches that there are innumerable souls distinct from one another and from God and though salvation through the spirit sounds Christian, yet the Upanishads constantly celebrate Vayu (wind) and Prana (breath) as the pervading principle of the world and the home of the self.  “By the wind (Vayu) as thread, O Gautama, this world and the other world and all creatures are bound together."[602] Thus the idea that the wind is the universal mediator is old and it does not seem that Madhva regarded Vayu as a redeemer or expiation for sin like Christ.

The Madhvas are still an energetic and important sect.  Their headquarters are at Udipi in South Kanara and they also hold an annual conference at Tirupati at which examinations in theology are held and prizes given.  At Udipi are eight maths and a very sacred temple, dedicated by Madhva himself to Krishna.  The head of each math is charged in turn with the supervision of this temple during two years and the change of office is celebrated by a great biennial festival in January.  The worship is more puritanical than in the temples of other sects, dancing girls for instance not being allowed, but great importance is attached to the practice of branding the body with the emblems of Vishnu.  The sect, like the Sri Vaishnavas, is divided into two parties, the Vyasakutas who are conservative and use Sanskrit scriptures,[603] and the Dasakutas who have more popular tendencies and use sacred books written in Kanarese.  Neither the Sri Vaishnavas nor the Madhvas are numerous in northern India.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 564:  Such as the Vishnu Purana, Vishnu Dharma, said to be a section of the Garuda Purana and the Bhagavad-gita.]