VAIKHĀNASAS

VAIKHĀNASAS . The chief "priests" (arcaka s) in more than half the Viṣṇu temples in the South Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and parts of Karnataka—including the renowned Hindu pilgrimage center, Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh—Vaikhānasas are a tiny, widely dispersed brahman community of about 3,000 families. Claiming to be a surviving school of Vedic ritual performance, the Taittiriya śākhā of the Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda, Vaikhānasas have their own complete Vedic Kalpasūtra in addition to prescriptive manuals on temple performances exemplifying the so-called Ᾱgama literature. Beyond the intrinsic interest of their literature and the evidence it provides for further inquiry into questions of continuity and change in India's religious traditions, Vaikhānasas command special interest and attention because of their contemporary temple activities and efforts to maintain community integrity despite accelerating social and technical change.

Manā's discussion of vanaprastha ("forest-dweller," the third of the four classical āśramas mentions a "Vaikhānasa rule" (Mānava Dharmaśāstra 6.21). As other ancient authorities seem to support this reference, it appears quite likely that there existed a distinct Vaikhānasa reclusive community some time before the beginning of the common era, though the extant Vaikhānasa sūtra s seem to be no older than the fourth century ce. The Vaikhānasa Gṛhyasūtras prescribe a daily worship of Viṣṇu that involves the fabrication of an image and is said to be "equal to the worship of all the gods" (Vaikhānasa Gṛhyasūtra 4.10–12). In essential details, this devotional service "prefigures" the arcana (service to images) detailed in the Vaikhānasa Saṃhitās; and it is plausible that Vaikhānasa literature documents the community's transition from a Vedic "school" of ritual observance to a "school" of the religious performances characteristic of Hindu devotional cults.

Louis Renou proposed (L'Inde classique, vol. 1) that the Vaikhānasa is a bhāgavata tradition that, while emphasizing Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa bhakti, did not exhibit the sectlike exclusivity apparently characteristic of early Pāñcarātra ekāntin s ("monotheists"). Certainly, the Vaikhānasas's own insistence that they are vaidika s and not tāntrika s clearly evidences their concern with distinguishing themselves from pāñcarātrika s. This concern is further illustrated in their refusal (at least since the mid- to late nineteenth century) to undergo Vaiṣṇavadīkṣā ("initiation" as a Vaiṣṇava) on the grounds that they are "Vaiṣṇavas at/from birth" because their mothers underwent a particular life-cycle rite (saṃskāra ) during their first pregnancies. Still, the exact historical relationship between Vaikhānasas and pāñcarātrika s remains unclear.

Inscriptions from perhaps the eighth century ce identify Vaikhānasas as temple functionaries. According to Vaikhānasa tradition, the sage Vikhanas (a manifestation of Brahmā or Viṣṇu) composed the Vaikhānasa Kalpasūtra and taught four disciples—Atri, Bhṛgu, Kāśyapa, and Marīci—the procedures of samūrtārcana ("devotional service [to Viṣṇu] with images"). Saṃhitās ("collections") of versions of these instructions, said to have been authored by these four disciples, constitute the core of Vaikhānasa literature.

More so than their Pāñcarātra counterparts, the Vaikhānasa Saṃhitās are the literature of ritual prescription, providing detailed instructions from priest to priest for constructing and dedicating temples and images and for conducting religious ceremonies involving them. While not negligible (as some scholars have asserted), the explicit jñāna sections of these texts are brief, and thus certain important features must be inferred from their discussions of ritual. These texts emphasize the distinction between Viṣṇu as the pervasive, unfigured (niṣkala ) presence in the universe and his figured (sakala ) presence occasioned in his graceful response to intent devotional meditation. Initially, this is the meditation of the arcaka who conducts the proceedings through which the deity comes to dwell in prepared images; subsequently, it is the essence of the behavior of devotees toward images so enlivened. Discussion of cosmogony in the Vaikhānasa texts principally traces the backgrounds of the human predicament: being caught in saṃsāra. According to Vaikhānasa teaching, mokṣa is "release" into Viṣṇu's heaven, and the nature of one's mokṣa depends on a devotee's service: attentive repetition of prayer (japa ), sacrifice (huta ), service to images (arcana ), or meditation conforming to yogic regimen (dhyāna ). Among these four, the Marīci Saṃhitā declares that arcana is the realization (sādhana ) of all aims.

See Also

Tamil Religions; Vaiṣṇavism.

Bibliography

Those who read French will profitably consult Gérard Colas's Viṣṇu, ses images et ses feux: Les métamorphoses du dieu chez les vaikhānasa (Paris, 1996), a comprehensive study of Vaikhānasa teachings and ritual. Colas's earlier Le temple selon Marici (Institut Français d'Indologie, Pondichéry, 1986) provides annotated translation of passages in the Marīcisaṃhitā dealing with the construction of temples and icons. In English, Jan Gonda's summary overview of Vaikhānasa literature in his Medieval Religious Literature in Sanskrit (Wiesbaden, 1977), pp. 140–152, remains useful as does Willem Caland's landmark essay On the Sacred Books of the Vaikhanasas (Amsterdam, 1928).

Caland's translation of the Vaikhānasasmārtasūtram (Calcutta, 1929) gives reliable access to a crucial text and is complemented by Wilhelm Eggers's Das Dharmasūtra der Vaikhānasas (Göttingen, 1927). Of the Vaikhānasa ritual handbooks, or Saṃhitās, the Kāśyapajñānakāṇḍa is ably translated into English by Teun Goudriaan as Kāśyapa's Book of Wisdom (The Hague, 1965). Also, Teun Goudriaan's "Vaikhānasa Daily Worship According to the Handbooks of Atri, Bhṛgu, Kāśyapa, and Marīci," Indo-Iranian Journal 12 (1970): 161–215, is an invaluable reference. Supplemented by the appropriate sections of Carl Gustav Diehl's Instrument and Purpose (Lund, 1956) that outline daily performances in South Indian Śiva temples, Goudriaan's essay affords an excellent idea of the essential structure and details of Agamic temple performances. And my "Mahāsaṃprokṣaṇa, 1981: Agama and Actuality in a Contemporary Temple Renovation," Agama and Silpa (Bombay, 1984), pp. 69–102, and "Tradition, Text, Person," History of Religions (May 1986) shed some light on the Vaikhānasas' contemporary circumstances.

G. R. Welbon (1987 and 2005)