Amongst other sectarians we have— Aghori. I Bhakta. I Saurapata or Avadhuta. Brahmachari. I Saura.
The following are towns with celebrated Vaish nava temples :— Tirupati (N. Arcot), Vencata Rama. Conjeveram (Chingleput), Vurda Raja. Triplicane (Madras), Parthasardy. Seringham (Trichy), Runga Naika. Seringapatam (Mysore), Runga Naika. Sevasumudrum (Mysore), Runga Naika. Malcotta (Mysore), Chellapilla Roya.
Therunarrayanapurum (Mysore), Yoga Narasimba. Nursepurum (Mysore), Narasimha.
Near Guntur, Panka Narashnha.
Bilegory Rungan Hill (Mysore), Bilegori Runga. Mondepollum (Coimbatore), Vencata Rama. Sutheagal (Coimbatore), Guni Ramasawmy. Striparamathur (Chingleput), Odayavur. Tinanore (Chingleput), Baktha Vatchalasawmy. Teruvellore (Chingleput), Viraragavu. Chicacolc (Ganjam), Chicacolusawmy. Buthrachella (Ceded Districts), Rama.
Terupagudul (Chingleput).
Carur (Coimbatore), Thauthony Vencataramen. Uduppy (S. Canara), Krishna.
Ulamalu Mungapurum (N. Arcot), Ulamalumunga.
Other localities famed for incarnations of Vishnu are—Ahabulum Algherry, Anuntasainum, Bhud radry, Ghuteka iChellum Janarthanum, Kovilady, Kristarnpet, Mylapur, iundrapurum, Simhandry, Srisailum, Strevullyputtur, Strivycuntum, Then kasi, Tirrnambur, Tirvuttur, Triputur, Virary muly.
Obscenities disfigure many of the Vaishnava temples all over India, and at Khajurabo in Bundelkhand is a Saiva ternple with gross obscenities.
Ashadi Ekadasi is the 11th of the light half of the month Ashad, and is dedicated to Vishnu. It falls about the 12th July, and refers to the summer solstice, and on this feast day com mences the night of the god, during which he reposes for four months on the serpent Sesha.
The Battia are a Hindu sect who worship Vishnu and his incarnation as Balaji at Panderpur and Tripatty. They have a great reverence for their guru, whom they style maharaj, and place at his disposal tan, man, dhan, body, mind, and means'; and recently in Bombay, scandalous immoralities, owing to their carelessness of their women, were shown. They are generally merchants.
Amongst the Vaishnava, Bhakta or Bhagat is DOW usually applied to a puritan or individual more devout than his neighbours. The Bhakta formerly were a sect who worshipped Vishnu as Vasu-deva, and the Bhakta Mala is a work in which is em bodied the legendary history of all the most cele brated Bhakta or devotees of the Vaishnava order. It was originally written in a Hindi dialect, by Nabha Ji, about A.D. 1580, but was added to by Narayan Das, who probably wrote in the reign of Shah Jahan. This, termed the Main., was added to in A.D. 1713 by Krishna Das, the additions being named the Tika. The sacrificial offerings
to Vishnu are rice, flowers, curds, fruits. To Siva and Durga, the objects offered in sacrifice are goats, sheep, and buffaloes.
The tulsi plant is typical of a nymph beloved by Vishnu. The Chatanula, according to Wilson, are a class of Sudra'who worship Vishnu exclus ively, and whose occupation is the sale of flowers ; this seemet9 be the sect known in the Penin sula as the Satani or Strtaniwanlu., The Ananta-chaturdasi is a Hindu festival in honour of Vishnu.
The Bairagi or Viragi, meaning devoid of passion, are Hindu ascetic devotees, worshippers of Vishnu. In the south of India, Vishnu is con sidered by the Vaishnava to be the supreme being or the masculine power of the Parabaravastu, and he is one of the mummurti or triad.
The Banya race largely worship Vishnu, who ia adored in some places as the four-armed, and is placed upon an altar clad in robes of his favourite colour (pandu or yellow ochre), whence one of his titles, Pandurang. At the intervals of the minor destructions of the world, Vishnu is repre sented as having reposed himself upon the serpent Sesha, amidst the waters by which the earth is overspread. He also sleeps for four months, frorn the 11th of Asharha to the llth of Kartik, or from about the middle of June to the middle of October, or from the time the periodical rains usually com mence till their termination. Vykuntha is the seat of Vishnu, the heaven which be quitted to assume the incarnate form of Rama. There sits the preserver of the world, enthroned with his consort Lakshmi, attended by Hanuman, Garuda, and watched by DrOve, the north star, the keeper of his royal gate. Nothing has yet turned up to give a clue for ascertaining the age in which Vaishnavism first originated. The most authentic fact of its earliest existence on record is furnished by the inscription on tbe iron pillar at Dehli, stating raja Dhava, who put up that pillar in A.D. 319, to have been a worshipper of Vishnu. The next fact is supplied by Fa Man, who saw, the Vishnupod at Gaya in the beginning 'of the 5th century. Vishnu worship is said to have been instituted at Kanchi in the Carnatic by Luchmana charya, but it must have been by a learned Brahman either of Rajputana or Gujerat, places famous for the life and acts of Krishna, that Vaishnavism was modified to introduce the worship of that incarnation. The great text book of the Vishnuvites, Streemut Bhagavat, is supposed to be the work of Bopdeva, a gram marian who lived in the court of the raja of Deoghur in the middle of the 12th century.