Sects of Hinduism: Shaiva, Vaishnava and Shakta

Hinduism is not one church but a family of traditions, and from about the early centuries of the Christian era its worshippers grouped themselves by the deity they held supreme. The classification that exams use counts three great sects, Shaiva, Vaishnava and Shakta, and three smaller ones, Ganapatya, Saura and Kaumara, which together make the Shanmata or six-fold scheme traditionally linked to Shankaracharya. Each sect has its own supreme deity, its own canon beyond the Vedas, its own line of teachers called acharyas, its own temples and its own art, and that is exactly what the question paper tests.

Shaivism

Shaivism takes Shiva as the supreme reality, worshipped in the aniconic linga as well as in forms such as Nataraja, the lord of dance, and Dakshinamurti, the teacher facing south. Its oldest known organised school is the Pashupata sect, traditionally traced to the teacher Lakulisha, who is held to be an incarnation of Shiva and is shown holding a club. The later Kapalika and Kalamukha sects were ascetic and extreme in practice. In the north, Kashmir Shaivism, also called Trika or Pratyabhijna, begins with the Shiva Sutras of Vasugupta and reaches its height with Abhinavagupta. In the Tamil country Shaiva Siddhanta became the dominant school, and the devotional hymns of its 63 Nayanar saints, among them Appar, Sambandar and Sundarar, were gathered as the Tevaram, which forms part of the twelve-book Tirumurai canon; Sekkizhar's Periya Puranam tells the Nayanars' lives. In twelfth century Karnataka Basavanna founded the Lingayat or Veerashaiva movement, whose followers wear a personal ishtalinga, reject caste and temple ritual, and whose teachings survive in the Kannada vachana poems of Basavanna, Akka Mahadevi and Allama Prabhu. The Nath sampradaya of Matsyendranath and Gorakhnath, with its hatha yoga, is also a Shaiva stream. The twelve Jyotirlingas, from Somnath in Gujarat to Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu, are the great pilgrimage centres of this sect.

Vaishnavism

Vaishnavism worships Vishnu and his incarnations, chiefly Rama and Krishna. Its earliest form, Bhagavatism, centred on Vasudeva-Krishna, and the most famous epigraphic proof of it is the Heliodorus pillar at Besnagar near Vidisha, set up by Heliodorus, the Greek ambassador of Antialcidas, in honour of Vasudeva. The Dashavatara, the ten incarnations, run Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, Narasimha, Vamana, Parashurama, Rama, Krishna, Buddha and Kalki. The Pancharatra and Vaikhanasa schools regulate temple worship. In Tamil Nadu the twelve Alvars sang in Tamil, and their four thousand verses were collected as the Nalayira Divya Prabandham; Andal was the only woman among them and Nammalvar the most revered. The temples they sang of are the 108 Divya Desams.

Regional movements multiplied this sect. The Warkari tradition of Maharashtra worships Vithoba at Pandharpur and produced Jnaneshwar, Namdev, Eknath and Tukaram; Ramananda's north Indian lineage carried Rama devotion into the Hindi belt; and Sri Vaishnavism itself divided into the Vadagalai and Tengalai schools over the weight to be given to Sanskrit and Tamil scripture.

Shaktism

Shaktism holds the Devi, the goddess, to be the supreme power of which all gods are expressions. Its foundational text is the Devi Mahatmya, a section of the Markandeya Purana, which narrates the slaying of Mahishasura; the Devi Bhagavata Purana and the Tantras follow. Two main streams are distinguished: Srikula, strong in the south, which worships Lalita Tripurasundari through the Sri Vidya tradition and the geometric Sri Yantra, and Kalikula, strong in Bengal and Assam, which worships Kali and Tara. The sect counts ten Mahavidyas, beginning with Kali and Tara, and its temples are the Shakti Pithas, said to mark where parts of Sati's body fell; the Kamakhya temple at Guwahati and the Vaishno Devi shrine in Jammu and Kashmir are among the most visited. Durga Puja, Navaratri and the Kumbhabhishekam of goddess temples are its great festivals.

Smarta and the smaller sects

Against sectarian exclusiveness stands the Smarta tradition, associated with Shankaracharya and his Advaita Vedanta, which prescribes panchayatana puja, the worship of five deities together, Shiva, Vishnu, Devi, Surya and Ganesha, as equal forms of one Brahman. Shankaracharya is credited with the four mathas at Sringeri, Puri, Dwarka and Jyotirmath, each linked with one Veda. The Ganapatya sect takes Ganesha as supreme and is strongest in Maharashtra, where the Ashtavinayaka temples are its circuit. The Saura sect worshipped Surya and built the sun temples of Konark, Modhera and Martand, but declined as a separate sect. The Kaumara sect worships Kartikeya as Murugan and is strong in Tamil Nadu, where the six Arupadai Veedu shrines are its pilgrimage.