28 RELIGIOUS SECTS 



ancient and respectable is the Sri Sampraddya, founded by the Vaishnwva re- 

 former Ramdniija Aclidryay about the middle of the twelfth century.* 



The history of Ramanuja, and his first followers, is well known in the 

 south of India, of which he was a native, and is recorded in various legendary 

 tracts and traditional narratives. 



According to the Bhdrgatia Upapurdna, Ramanuja is said to have been 

 an incarnation of the serpent Sesha, whilst his chief companions and disciples 

 were the embodied Discus, Mace, Lotus, and other insignia of Vishnu, 

 In a Kanara account of his life, called the Divya Charitra, he is said to have 

 been the son of Sri Kesava Achdrya and Bhumi Devi ; and, as before, an in- 

 carnation of Sesha. He was born at Perumbur, and studied at Kdnchi, or 

 Coryeveram, where also he taught his system of the Vaishnava faith. He 



*« Those Mantras, which belong to no system, are of no virtue; and, therefore, in the Kali age, 

 there shall be followers of four sects. Sri, Mddhwi, Rudra and Sanaka, shall be the Vaishnavas, 

 purifying the world, and these four, Devi, (Siva speaks,) shall be the institutors of the Sampraddyas 

 in the iKu^e period." We may here observe in passing, that if this text is genuine, the PadmaPurdna 

 must be very modern : another similar text is the following : 



TTWT^w ^^^^t TT^crr^^-^g^^:! ^t%^wf%^^tT t^^^l^^'^^^^*. n 



Lakshm! selected Rdmdtiuja ; Brahma Madhwdchdrya ; Rudra gave the preference to Vishnu 

 Swdmi, and the four Sanakas to Nimbdditya^' The cause of the election is not very evident, as the 

 creeds taught by those teachers, have little connexion with the deity who lends the appellation to 

 the sects. 



* The Smriti Kdla Taranga places the date of R amanuja's appearance in Saka — 1049 or a. d. 



1127. A note by Colonel Mackenzie on an inscription, given in the Asiatic Researches 9, 270, 

 places the birth of Ramanuja in a. d. 1008 : various accounts, collected by Dr. Buchanan, make 

 it 1010 and 1025 (Buchanan's Mysore, 2,80) and 1019 (Ibid, 3,413,) Inscriptions make him alive in 



1128, (Ibid) which would give him a life of more than a century : according to Col. Wilks, indeed, 

 (History of Mysore 1,41, note and appendix), he was alive in 1183. The weight of authority 

 seems to be in favour of the more recent date, and we may conclude that he was born about the 

 end of the eleventh century, and that the first half of the twelfth century was the period at wliich 

 his fame, as a teacher, was established. 



