RAMANUJAS, followers of Ramanuja, a southern Brahmin of the 12th century. Sri Vaishnavas, as they are usually called, worship Vishnu (Narayana) with his consort Sri or Lakshmi (the goddess of beauty and fortune), or their incarnations Rama with Sita and Krishna with Rukmini. Ramanuja's doctrine is essentially based on the tenets of an old Vaishnava sect, the Bhagavatas or Pancharatras, who worshipped the Supreme Being under the name of Vasudeva (later identified with Krishna, as the son of Vasudeva). They have shrines at Srirangam near Trichinopoly, Mailkote in Mysore, Dvaraka (the city of Krishna) on the Kathiawar coast, and Jagannath in Orissa ; all of them decorated with Vishnu's emblems, the tulasi plant and salagram stone. Whilst Sankara's mendicant followers were prohibited to touch fire and had to subsist entirely on the charity of Brahman householders, Ramanuja, on the contrary, not only al lowed his followers to use fire, but strictly forbade their eating any food cooked, or even seen, by a stranger. On the speculative
side, Ramanuja met Sankara's strictly monistic theory by an other, recognizing Vishnu as identical with Brahma, the Supreme Spirit animating the material world as well as the individual souls which have become estranged from God through unbelief, and can only attain again conscious union with him through de votion or love (bhakti). His tenets are expounded in various works, especially in his commentaries on the Vedantasutras and the Bhagavadgita. The followers of Ramanuja have split into two sects, a northern one, recognizing the Vedas as their chief authority, and a southern one, basing their tenets on the Nalayir, a Tamil work of the Upanishad order. (See RAMATS.) See E. Thurston, Tribes and Castes of India, s.v.