Tradition

Vaishnavism

Overview

Vaishnavism (Sanskrit: वैष्णवसम्प्रदायः, romanised: Vaiṣṇavasampradāyaḥ), also called Vishnuism, is one of the major Hindu religious traditions, that considers Vishnu as the supreme being leading all other Hindu deities, that is, Mahavishnu. It is one of the major Hindu denominations along with Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism. Its followers are called Vaishnavites or Vaishnavas (IAST: Vaiṣṇava), and it includes sub-sects like Krishnaism and Ramaism, which consider Krishna and Rama as the supreme beings respectively.

The ancient emergence of Vaishnavism is unclear, and broadly hypothesised as the rise of various regional non-Vedic religions which fused with one another and with worship of Vishnu. Those popular non-Vedic theistic traditions, particularly the Bhagavata cults of Vāsudeva-Krishna and Gopala-Krishna, as well as the Pancaratra-cult of Narayana, developed in the 7th to 4th century BCE, and were identified with the Vedic God Vishnu in the early centuries CE, and finalised as Vaishnavism, when it developed the avatar doctrine, wherein the various non-Vedic deities are revered as distinct incarnations of the supreme God Vishnu. Narayana, Hari, Rama, Krishna, Kalki, Perumal, Shrinathji, Vithoba, Venkateswara, Guruvayurappan, Ranganatha, Jagannath, Badrinath and Muktinath are revered as forms or avatars of Vishnu, all seen as different aspects of the same supreme being.

The Vaishnavite tradition is known for the loving devotion to an avatar of Vishnu (often Krishna), and as such was key to the spread of the Bhakti movement in the Indian subcontinent in the 2nd millennium CE. It has four Vedanta - schools of numerous denominations (sampradaya): the medieval-era Vishishtadvaita school of Ramanuja, the Dvaita school of Madhvacharya, the Dvaitadvaita school of Nimbarkacharya, and the Shuddhadvaita of Vallabhacharya. There are also several other Vishnu-traditions. Ramananda (14th century) created a Rama-oriented movement, now the largest monastic group in Asia.

Key texts in Vaishnavism include the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Pancharatra (Agama) texts, Naalayira Divya Prabhandham, and the Bhagavata Purana.

According to a 2020 estimate by The World Religion Database (WRD), hosted at Boston University's Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs (CURA), Vaishnavism is the largest Hindu sect, constituting about 399 million Hindus.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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But by sacred things one must not understand simply those personal beings which are called gods or spirits; a rock, a tree, a spring, a pebble, a piece of wood, a house, in a word, anything can be sacred. A rite can have this character; in fact, the rite does not exist which does not have it to a certain degree.
Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
States what Vaishnavism is.
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Again, after a period, the whole thing is disturbed, projected outward, again it slowly comes out in the form of waves; for all motion in this universe is in the form of waves, successive rise and fall.
Swami Vivekananda, Jnâna Yoga, Part II
States what Vaishnavism is.
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Other methods of deliverance from evil are in the excessive acts of penance performed by the Indians, to which a retreat within themselves is added. Now when the Indian thus internally collects himself, and retreats within his own thoughts, the moment of such pure concentration is called Brahma, the one and the clearly supersensuous state, which the understanding calls the highest possible existence. When this is so…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
States what Vaishnavism is.
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Vaishnavism

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