Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c14.4

c14.4

Similarly with regard to Vaiṣṇavism, there appeared in South India a few Vaiṣṇava teachers who were known as the Ālvārs. They were twelve in number, and among them prominent mention may be made of Pōygai Ālvār, Namma Ālvār, Kulaśēkhara Ālvār, Periya Ālvār and Tirumaṅgai Ālvār. Their works “may be described as welling with a genuine love of an extremely intense degree for Viṣṇu, and in their earnestness and fervour they stand only on a par with the equally strong and touching appeals to God made in the *Dēvāram* by the Śaiva saints. Their love or *bhakti* is the foundation of the doctrine of *prapatti* which looms large in the Vaiṣṇava philosophy.”¹ Later than the Vaiṣṇava Ālvārs, flourished a few Vaiṣṇava Ācāryas such as Nāthamuni and Āḷavandār (Yamunācārya), who propounded and elaborated the philosophy of the Ālvārs. They were followed by Śrī Rāmānujācārya who lived in the 11th and 12th centuries. While Śaṅkara emphasised the monistic theory, Rāmānuja propounded the theory of Viśiṣṭādvaita. According to the Advaita doctrine of Śaṅkara, Brahman alone is real, and all else is illusory manifestation (māyā), but according to the Viśiṣṭādvaidic position all things are real and permanent as attributes inseparable from the one Brahman.