A religious community in southern India that is devotees
(bhakta) of the gods Vishnu and Shri (Lakshmi), and whose religious practice is
based on the devotional songs of the Alvars, a group of twelve poet-saints who
lived in southern India during the seventh and tenth centuries.
The Alvars were all Vishnu worshipers, and their emphasis on
ardent devotion (bhakti) to a particular deity, expressed via hymns sung in
Tamil, revolutionized Hindu religious life.
The philosopher Ramanuja, regarded the Shrivaishnava
founder, collected and systematized the Alvars' spiritual outpouring two
centuries later.
Ramanuja was believed that Brahman, or Supreme Reality, was
a personal god rather than an impersonal abstract concept, and that the most
significant kind of religious activity was devotion.
His philosophical viewpoint, Vishishthadvaita Vedanta,
emphasized both of these ideas, and so stood in opposition to Shankaracharya's
Advaita Vedanta school, which emphasized that the Supreme Being was impersonal
and that realization (jnana) was the highest spiritual path.
The Shrivaishnava community separated into two smaller sects
following Ramanuja, the Tengalai and the Vadagalai.
The division arose from a debate over whether human work was
required for eventual emancipation or if hope comes from total submission (pra
patti) to God's favor; the Vadagalais believed the former, while the Tengalais
believed the latter.
In reality, the Shrivaishnava community has been heavily impacted
by the Pancharatra religious group's theory of divine "emanations,"
specifically the idea that a properly consecrated picture becomes a
manifestation of the god itself.
Shrivaishnava religiosity has traditionally revolved on
temples and, in particular, the service of the temple's image, which is regarded
a true representation of the god.
Given the emphasis on study and temple-based devotion, it's
no surprise that the community has been dominated by brahmins, with the few
non-brahmins having a clear lower position.
K. Rangachari's book The Sri Vaisnava Brahmans was published
in 1931, and John Braisted Carman's book The Theology of Ramanuja was published
in 1974.
