THE RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS (ANCIENT INDIA)

        The religious movements that were centered on the historical persons like Mahavira and the Buddha about the middle of the 1st millennium B.C. fall under the second group. About that time there flourished several other religious teachers who were connected with such movements.

Some early Buddhist texts speak of six foremost opponents of the Buddha, who were the chiefs of peretical sects-Purana Kasyapa, Maskari Gosala, Ajita Kesakambalin, Pakudha Karyayana, Sanjaya Belasthiputra and Nirgrantha Jnataputra. The second and the last in the list, Maskari Gosala and Nirgrantha Jnataputra (another name of Mahavira) were the most important of them all-they were connected respectively with Ajivikism and Jainism. The creeds preached by some of them contained elements that were not in keeping with the Vedic tradition, and they ignored the infallibility and supernatural origin of the Vedas.

        Vasudeva – Krishna Worship: Bhagavata – Pancharatra – Vaishnava. Asutra in Punini’s Ashtadhyayi refers to the worshippers of Vasudeva (Krsna) whom Epic and Puranic traditions describe as a hero of the Sattvata race.

        The Chandogya Upanishad speaks or Krsna, the son of Devaki, a pupil of the sage Ghora Angirasa who a sun-worshipping priest was. Vasudeva – Krsna appears to have played the most dynamic role in the great Kurukshetra war and helped in the establishment of righteousness after the destruction of impiety. He was idealized by his followers during his lifetime and was apotheosized afterwards.

The large number of people who worshipped him exclusively as their personal god were at first known as Bhagavatas. The Vasudeva-Bhagavata cult was a steadily growing religious movement, absorbing within its fold other Vedic and Brahmanic divinities like Visun (primarily as aspect of the sun) and Narayana (a cosmic god).

It is a fact that the doctrinal aspect of the cult developed in the early centuries of the Christian era, when one of the names given to it was Pancharatra.

         The history of the Vaishnava movement from the end of the Gupta period till the first decade of the 13th century A.D. is concerned mostly with South India. Vaishnava poet-saints known as Alvars) a Tamil word denoting those drowned in Visnubhaskti) preached one-souled and loving adoration (ekatmika bhakti) for Vishnu and their songs were collectively named prabandhas.

        The most famous of the 12 Alvars were Nammalvar and Thirumalisai Aivar, while those noted among the early Acaryas were Yamunacharya and Ramanuja. The Alvars represented the emotional side of South Indian Vaishnavism and the Acaryas its intellectual aspect. The two great Acaryas developed between themselves the doctrine of the Vishistadvaita (qualified non-dualism) on the basis of some Upanisadic texts in opposition to Shankaracharya’s Advaitavada.

Two other Vaishnava teachers of the South, who lived shortly after Ramanuja (c. 11th century A.D), were Madhvacharya and Nimarka, the founders of the Brahma Sampradaya and Sankadi Sampradaya respectively. They were the preachers of Advaitavada 9dualism) and Dvaitadvaitavada (dualistic non-dualism) in Vaishnavism. Nimbarka, though a native of the Deccan; lived most of the time in Mathura and his Vaishnavism had a marked emphasis on Radha-Krsna worship.

        Panini in his sutra on the formation of words like Saiva probably refers to a group of Siva-worshippers of his time (c. 5th century B.C.). Patanjali in his commentary on one of the sutras of Panini describes a class of Siva – worshippers named by him as Siva-Bhagavatas, who were characterized by the iron lances and clubs they carried and their skin garments.

        Patanjali’s testimony is all the more interesting for the manner in which it has been given. He refers indirectly and briefly to the forceful and outlandish ritualism of these worshippers of Siva.

        The Pashupata doctrine as amended and organized by Lakulisha was dualistic in character. Pasu, the individual soul was eternally existing with Pati, the supreme soul, and the attainment of Duhkhanta (cessation of nursery) by the former was through the performance of Yoga and Vidhi. The Vidhior means consisted mainly of various apparently senseless and unsocial acts. The Kapalikas and Kalamukhas were no doubt off-shoots of the Pashupata sect and there is clear epigraphic evidence to show that these were already flourishing in the Gupta period.

        The secluded valley of Kashmir became the venue of the Pratyabhijna and Spandas Astra schools founded respectively by Vasugupta and his pupils Kallata and Somananda (c. 9th century A.D). Other teachers prominent in the propagation of the monistic tenets of the philosophical types of Saiva religious movement were Utpalacarya, his prasisya Abhinavagupta and Abhinava’s pupil Ksemaraja (10th, 11th and 12th centuries A.D. respectively.)