SAMPRADAYA, a Vaislinava sect founded about A.D. 1150, by Ramanujacharya. lie was born at Perumbur, and studed at Kanclii or Conjeverain, and afterwards resided at Sri Ranga. He then visited various shrines, propagating his reformed views, and reclaiming the shrines for the worshippers of Vishnu particularly the celebrated tetnple of Tripati. Th'c sect worships Vishnu and Lakshmi and their several incarnations. They keep the .salagratna fossil and tulsi plant in their temples and dwelling,s, and set up in their houses images of stone and silver, which are daily wor shipped. The temples appropriated to Vishnu and his consort are resorted to, and pilgrimages are made to Lakshini-13alaji, Ramnath, and Ranganath in the south of India, to Badrinath in the Himakiya, Jaganath in Orissa, and Dwaraka on the Malabar coast. This sect in general prepare their food individually and in private, and if a stranger's look fall on the food. the cooking in stopped and the food buried. They must »ot eat in cotton garments, but, having bathed, must put on woollen and silk. Their chief religious tenet is the assertion that Vishnu is Bralttn, that he wa.s before all worlds, and was the cause and creator of all. In opposition to the Vedanta doctrines, they deny that the deity is now of form or quality, but regard him as endowed with all good qualitiea and with a twofold form, viz. the supreme spirit
Paramatma or cause, and the gross one, the effect, the universe or matter. Their doctrine ia there fore called the Visislithalwaita,or doctrine of unity with attributes. In these assertions they are followed by most of the Vaislinava sects. They assert three predicates of the nniveme, compre hending the deity ; it consists of Chit or spirit, Ada or matter, and Imam or god, or the enjoyer, the thing enjoyed, and the ruler and controller of both. Besides his pi imary and secondary form as the creator and creation, the deity has assumed, at different times, particular forms and appear ances, for the benefit of his creatures. He is, or has been, visibly present among,st men in five modifications,—in his Archa, objects or worship, as images, etc.; in the Vibahava or avatara, as the fish, the boar, etc.; in certain forms called Vyulia, of which four are enumerated, viz. Vasudeva or Krishna, Balarama, Pradyumna, and Amruddha fourthly, in the Sukshina form, which, when perfect, comprises six qualities. Blood-offerings at the temples are prohibited by ail Vaislinava. Their reward for good acts is laid down as the perpetual residence in Vaikunt'ha or Vishnu's heaven.—Professor Wilson. See Mantra.