The four Vaishnava sampradayas

Where the count of four comes from

A chhappay of Nabhadas’s Bhaktamal (Hindi, late 16th century) calls four teachers the “chaturvyuha” of the Kali age: Ramanuja, Vishnuswami, Madhvacharya and Nimbaditya (Nimbarka). The doha that follows ties each to its source: Ramanuja to Rama (Lakshmi), Vishnuswami to Tripurari (Shiva), Nimbaditya to the Sanakadi Kumaras and Madhva to four-faced Brahma.

In Sanskrit the same idea is given in a verse said to be from the Padma Purana: “sampradaya-vihina ye mantras te nishphala matah”, that is, mantras not received through a sampradaya are held to bear no fruit, and in the Kali age there will be four Vaishnava sampradayas, of Sri, Brahma, Rudra and Sanaka. The 18th-century Gaudiya teacher Baladeva Vidyabhushana quotes it in his Prameya-ratnavali as from the Padma Purana, and names the four teachers in the next verse.

We found no source that gives the section and chapter of this verse in the Padma Purana, so no chapter number is given here. The four teachers lived in different centuries; counting them together as four sampradayas is how later tradition arranged them.

The four philosophies in brief

Vishishtadvaita (Ramanuja): Brahman is one and possesses countless auspicious qualities. Souls and the world are real and are related to Brahman as a body is to its soul. This Brahman is Vishnu-Narayana with Lakshmi, and the way to him is devotion (bhakti) and surrender (prapatti).

Dvaita (Madhva): God and the soul are separate entities, and the soul’s existence depends on God. The world is always changing, but that does not make it unreal. Madhva’s followers call their system Tattvavada.

Shuddhadvaita (Vallabha): God and the universe are one, and the world is not declared an illusion. Liberation comes only by God’s grace (pushti), and the devotee must surrender wholly to God.

Dvaitadvaita (Nimbarka): Brahman, that is Shri Krishna, is both different and not different from souls and the world. Both difference and non-difference belong to his own nature, not to any outside limiting condition, which is why it is also called svabhavika bhedabheda.

Later Vaishnava traditions

Gaudiya Vaishnavism: the devotion to Krishna that has flourished in Bengal and Odisha since the 16th century, from Chaitanya (1485–1533 according to Britannica), with group kirtan at its heart. His six Gosvamins wrote its theology in Vrindavan; its philosophy is called Achintya-bhedabheda. The tradition traces its line of teachers through Madhva and so counts itself a branch of the Brahma (Madhva) sampradaya; ISKCON belongs to it.

Ramanandi: the tradition linked with Ramananda (c. 1400–1470). His followers hold him to be fifth in the line of Ramanuja. According to Britannica it is the largest Vaishnava monastic order in North India today.

Pushtimarg: the tradition of Vallabha and his son Vitthalanatha. According to Britannica Vallabha belonged to the Rudra sampradaya of Vishnuswami, which is why Pushtimarg is also called the Rudra sampradaya.

Varkari Panth: a devotional tradition of Maharashtra about 700 years old, which worships Vitthal (Vithoba) of Pandharpur, a form of Vishnu, and walks each year in pilgrimage to Pandharpur, arriving in early July. Jnanadeva, Namdev and Tukaram are its great saints.

Swaminarayan Sampradaya: Sahajanand Swami (1781–1830), whom followers call Swaminarayan, was initiated by Ramanand Swami in 1800 and led the tradition in Gujarat from 1801. Its main texts are the Shikshapatri (1826) and the Vachanamrut, and the Encyclopedia of Religion describes Ramanuja’s Vishishtadvaita as the foundation of its theology.

Where the sources differ

• Order and names: the Bhaktamal chhappay names Ramanuja, Vishnuswami, Madhvacharya and Nimbaditya in that order; the verse quoted as from the Padma Purana has the order Sri, Brahma, Rudra, Sanaka.
• The Padma Purana verse: Baladeva Vidyabhushana attributes it to the Padma Purana, but we found no source giving its section and chapter. The Gaudiya scholar Jagadananda Das (Jan Brzezinski) also writes that no exact reference has been given for it.
• Gaudiya and Madhva: the Gaudiya tradition traces its line of teachers through Madhva (Prameya-ratnavali); some scholars have questioned this link.
• Ramanandi and Ramanuja: followers place Ramananda in Ramanuja’s line; according to Britannica some scholars, and in the early 20th century some Ramanandis themselves, have questioned the link.
• The teachers’ dates: for Ramanuja, some recent research gives 1077–1157 instead of the traditional c. 1017–1137 (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy); for Madhva both 1238–1317 and 1199–1278 are found (Britannica). The disagreement over Nimbarka’s date is on the “Nimbarka sampradaya” page.

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