Sri Vaishnava Tenkalai-Vadakalai: Sectarian Fault-lines

SYNOPSIS

Of the book, “A Tale of Two Cities: The Decline and Fall of the “ubhaya-Vedantins” – An Outline of the History of Sri Vaishnavas of Tamil Nadu that was never written” M.K.Sudarshan(2023) WESTWOOD BOOK PUBLISHING ATLANTA, Ga, USA)

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PREAMBLE:

• Sri Ramanujacharya (1017-1137 CE), is the “ParamachAcharya” (supreme guru) of a numerically small community (population as per 2011 Census estimates, does not exceed c. 500, 000) in Tamil Nadu calling themselves Sri Vaishnavas.
• Ramanuja was a Veda-Vedantic preceptor who propounded the third most prominent school of Indian Philosophy extant today known as Visishtadvaita aka “ramanuja darsana”. The language in which Ramanuja discoursed on philosophy and engaged with rival schools of Vedanta was Sanskrit.
• The orthodox tenets of Ramanuja’s philosophy were further developed by him into a distinctive Theology known as “ubhaya vedaanta sampradaayam”. The most distinctive feature of this “sampradaayam” was Bhakti. The language in which he chose to discourse upon and propagate Bhakthi was Tamizh. To this purpose, Ramanuja integrated the Tamizh Vedas of Holy Azhwars, the “naalaayira divya prabhadham” (“the sacred 4000 hymns of God-intoxicated devotion’) with the ageless Sanskritic Vedic liturgical traditions hitherto practiced in Sri Vaishnava temples.

Thus, it can be said that Ramanuja’s Sri Vaishnavism was a religious system of worship in Vishnu temples in South India. It dates back to the 10^th century CE . It is a unique system in that it integrated Indian Vedic culture with Tamil sub-culture and the customs of native Dravidian provinces. It was precisely why it became known as “ubhaya Vedanta”— “ubhaya” being a Sanskrit word meaning “dual” or “two”, indicating thereby that it was founded on two main pillars: the first being Sanskrit Vedas and Vedantic philosophy and the second being “bhakti” theology of the Dravida Vedas viz. Azhwars’ “divya prabhandhams”.

-I-

RAMANUJA’s LEGACY

• For almost 200 years after Ramanuja’s time, the identity of the “ubhaya-vedantins” remained intact. The identity of the Sri Vaishnavas of Tamil Nadu was unitary and common: they were all “ubhaya vedantins”. 
• There was a galaxy of great Sri Vaishnava Acharyas, scholars and pundits in the Post-Ramanuja centuries whose output of works in philosophy, theology and religious literature was prodigious and profound. Some of them belonged to the northern geography of Kanchipuram. Most others hailed from the southern provinces in and around Sri Rangam.
• At this time in history, there was no split whatsoever between the northern and southern groups within the Sri Vaishnava community. The grouping of the community into Tenkalai and Vadakalai was simply geographical.  Kanchipuram and Sri Rangam were extremities of geographical space not of religious faith.  

The commonalities between Tenkalai and Vadakalai remained firm as Ramanuja’s legacy in terms of the following facts:

1. Both abided in Vishnu or Sriman Narayana as the supreme deity.
2. Both held Ramanuja to be their “paramaacharya”, or the Supreme Acharya.
3. Both embraced the Vedic scriptures that were in Sanskrit language which was indeed the mother-tongue too of so many “ubhaya-vedantin” families in Tamil country.
4. Both held Ramanuja’s magnum opus, the “Sri Bhashyam” to be the most authoritative scriptural foundation of their faith and equally, did they also  embrace the “Naalaayira Divyaprabhandham” of the Azhwars. Hence, one deserved no less reverence than the other.
5. Both regarded the 100+ Vishnu or Perumal temples that had been built by kings and monarchs in peninsular India as their very own commonwealth. As the centuries rolled by, these temples became rich religious and cultural ecosystems in which the Sri Vaishnavas thrived as great scholars, thinkers, artists and savants.  
6. Both believed in the other noble ethical values and broad ethos of “sri raamanuja sampradaya”.
7. Both accepted and cherished the common lineage of Acharyas – i.e. the “Acharya Parampara” that preceded Ramanuja viz.:  Yamunacharya, Peria Nambi, Nathamuni et al…

-II-

POST-RAMANUJA ERA: Power and Control

1. Around the beginning of the 15^th century CE, however, the theological divergence between the norther and southern groups of “ubhaya-vedantins” began to veer away towards narrow schismatic ways of thinking.
2. The schism between Tenkalai and Vadakalai gradually widened when the two groups each acquired enormous political patronage from the Vijayanagara Dynasties (Sangama, Saluva and Aravidu kings) who ruled much of South India including Tamil country between 1336 CE and 1672 CE.
3. The royal patronage of Vijayanagara monarchs was enjoyed by the Sri Vaishnavas of both Kanchipuram and Sri Rangam.It enabled them to acquire and exercise great power and control over the affairs and administration of vast temple commonwealth, real-estate, agricultural lands and property — all munificent endowments by the great Kings.
4. The gain of Power and Control over vast temple commonwealth in the span of two centuries created strong and deep vested interests and sense of entitlements within the Sri Vaishnava communities at large. In time, it further polarized the growing sectarian divide as Tenkalai south and Vadakalai north as each competed with the other for greater royal and political patronage, prestige and property. In the power-games and play of intrigue that ensued, the religious identity and ethos of the “ubhaya-vedanta” tradition began to fray and slowly fade within the Sri Vaishnava community.
5. The Tenkalai “sampradaayam” began asserting the primacy of Tamizh language, the Azhwar Divya Prabhandhams and the Bhakthi doctrines of Sri Vaishnavism. On the other hand, the Vadakalai sampradaayam” asserted the primacy of the Sanskrit language, Sri Bhashyam and Vedantic discourse as the predominant core of Sri Vaishnavism.

-III-

COMPETITIVE “ACHARYA BHAKTHI”

• The two groups soon also began to increasingly rally around exclusive “Acharya Paramparas” which they themselves created and duly apotheosized. Generations thereafter, the Acharya Muttams attained almost cult-like status and legions of their respective sishyas or acolytes in the land became almost fanatic “cheerleaders” sworn to uphold and protect their respective Acharya and “sampradaayam”.
• Although the strict rules of Agama-sastra do not concede to the “pratishta” of idols representing any Deity other than Vishnu inside the temple… and generally do not envisage consecrating idols or icons of mortal souls even if they happen to be venerated Acharyas… the Sri Vaishnava laity and community however went on justifying (as it does even today) the worship of such iconic objects. Why and how? It is on the basis of a rather dubious theological pretext drawn from a rather tenuous interpretation of Agama saastras. The justification is that the consecration of Acharyas idols is on par with iconizing the forms of Divinity… and that Acharyas are not mere human beings but are, in fact, quasi-avatars of the Deity Vishnu himself! Thus, the 12 Azhwars idolized within temples are to be regarded as “amsha avatars” of Vishnu.
• By the same theological reasoning the Tenkalai also installed the idol of their foremost Acharya, Manavaala Maamuni, claiming that he was semi-divine entity, “an avatar of Adi Seshan,” the great celestial serpent on whose coiled body Vishnu lay supine in eternal reposefulness. Worship of an “archa-murthy “ of Manavaala Maamuni installed inside a Vishnu Temple was thus quite kosher!
• In the true spirit of theological one-upmanship and competitive “Acharya bhakthi”, the Vadakalais quickly retaliated by claiming their own Acharya, Vedanta Desikan too was no mere mortal but an avatar of Vishnu’s “ghanta mani” – the handheld bell which served as a celestial gong in the realms of the eternal world known as Vishnu’s Parama Padam! Therefore, idol-worship of Vedanta Desika inside a “sannidhi” within the temple precincts was equally kosher!
• The competitive idolatry in which Sri Vaishnavas of both sectarian camps engaged (and they do even to this day!) in the manner described above, became a perennial source of rivalry and spite between the two sects. Their petty feuding however was but a ludicrous travesty of the lofty theological canons of Agamic “archa-murthy” worship upon which Ramanujacharya had instituted his own reforms in temples such as Sri Rangam, Tirumala or Melkote.
• Thus did the Tenkalais of Sri Rangam institute their very own “Prathama Acharya” in the person of Sri Manavaala Mamuni (1370-1443 CE) a great preceptor, Tamizh and Manipravalam scholar and exponent of the Divya Prabhandhams. He was a disciple of a very venerable “tennaacharya” of Sri Rangam, Sri Srisailesa (1329-1434 CE).
• The Vadakalais of Kanchipuram in turn swore allegiance to Sri Vedanta Desika who was an outstanding polymath, philosopher, poet and preceptor. His legacy became the “desika sampradaayam” of the Kanchipuram community whose “acharya parampara” now completely excluded the Acharyas of the Tenkalais and included instead a pantheon of preceptors specially designated by themselves.
• Thus, the seeds of adversarial confrontation between Tenkalai and Vadakalai, between Dravida Veda and Sanskriti Veda, between “thennaachaarya sampradayama” and “desika sampradaayam” and between Kanchipuram and Sri Rangam were now sown and took deep roots in Tamil Nadu.

-IV-

THE PRE-INDEPENDENCE ERA:

Between 16^th and 18^th century CE the Sri Vaishnava communities – both Tenkalai and Vadakalai — and their once vast temple ecosystems were denuded, marauded and looted, first by a series of Islamic invasions and later by British imperialistic rule. For well over 300 years, temples were plundered and systematically drained of wealth through oppressive colonial taxation, administrative policies of “divide and rule” and British legislation and jurisprudence which sowed discord in Hindu society, and institutionalized corruptive practices in public life .

During this period in history, both Tenkalai and Vadakalai societies experienced extremely distressing conditions of impoverishment and deracination — socio-economic, cultural and psychological.

Kanchipuram and the battles for Legitimacy

By the end of the 17^th century CE, when the Vijayanagara Empire collapsed under the onslaught of Islamic invasions, both the “kalais” only ended up forsaking — in all but the name — the great “ubhaya Vedanta” identity which was Ramanuja’s legacy to them. Thereafter the two groups descended into bitter sectarian feuding.          

1. While sectarian feuding in many Sri Vaishnava temples was rife during this period in the history, the most virulent form however it took was in the city of Kanchipuram. Since 1792 CE the Tenkalais have squabbled with Vadakalais trying to wrest control over the Varadaraja Perumal Temple from out of the hands of the Thaathacharya family, the hereditary priests and custodians of the temple for generations since the times of the Vijayanagar Dynasties.
2. Kanchipuram became the main battleground for Tenkalai-Vadakalai sectarian feuding for the following single most important reason:
3. According to the Tenkalais, the Vadakalais + the Thaathacharya priests, simply had no legitimacy whatsoever, or locus standi, to exercise control and administer the affairs of the temple. The reasoning for their position is in the form of a historical narrative often put forth by them.
4. Legitimacy of the Kanchipuram Thathaacharya clan cannot be accepted because Kanchipuram temple does not have a “koil ozhukku” manual similar to the ones Ramanujacharya had authored at Sri Rangam, Tirumala and Melkote. This fact by itself casts a shadow on the legitimacy of the Kanchipuram “thaathaacharyas” to claim hereditary right to own, control, curate and administer the temple.
5. The Tenkalai narrative was woven further around this broad theme: The Thaathaacharyas of Kanchi, unlike the Jeeyars of Sri Rangam or Tirumala temples, lacked the direct, sacral imprimatur of Sri Ramanuja himself in being appointed to their position of exclusive stewardship of the temple; Sri Ramanuja himself had never historically been “intimately connected” with the affairs of the Kanchi Temple in the same manner in which he clearly had been at Sri Rangam, Tirumala and Melkote temples; Ramanuja did not happen to author, or cause to be authored, a proper “koil ozhukku” for the Kanchipuram Temple as he had done for the other three temple-capitals of Sri Vaishnavas. All these facts of history go to only clearly negate the legitimacy of the Thaathachaarya family-lineage to appoint themselves as “Sri Kaarya durandhara-s” — the chief executive officers — exercising the Power of oversight, management and control of the Sri Vararadaraja Temple.
6. The Vadakalais of Kanchipuram however rejected outright the Tenkalai arguments based on the following counter-intuitive narrative:
7. The fact that Sri Ramanuja lived most of his 120-year long life (after leaving Kanchipuram in his middle-age) in Sri Rangam and Melkote and (for relatively shorter periods of time) in Tirumala, and that he did not return or re-visit the Kanchi temple can be regarded as only an accident of various circumstances and a combination of historical and political events. That he never returned to Kanchipuram after he left it and did not involve himself in any direct or “intimately connected” way in the affairs of the Sri Varadaraja temple may be true but there is no evidence to show that it was out of any deliberate personal choice he had made. It is hence no more than plain and inconsequential happenstance.
8. The availability or absence of a specific Sri Ramanuja-authored “koil ozhukku” for the Kanchipuram Temple cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be misconstrued or mispresented as indicating that the Thaathaachaarya-s of Kanchi were either not complying with or in any way diluting the highest normative standards, rules and regulations of ancient Veda, Vaishnava Agama and Divya Prabhandic traditional scriptures prescribed for conduct of sacerdotal rites and rituals inside the temple sannidhis or shrines.
9. The Thaathachaaryas priestly families connected with this Temple were very orthodox in the observance of religious rites and rituals to their meticulous perfection as prescribed in the scriptures. The same system of observance had been handed down to their posterity and is still being observed to this day.
10. The Vadakalais further argued thus:
11. “What are the so-called modes of Tenkalai worship and what are the Tenkalai ceremonies and temple rituals which are being flouted by the Vadakalai Thaathacharya priests?! Strictly speaking there can be no Tenkalai or Vadakalai mode of worship in any Sri Vaishnava Temple. The worship is performed according to the Agamas which are neither Tenkalai nor Vadakalai in character. But we generally call a temple Vadakalai or Tenkalai only on the basis of sectarian marks (“U” and “Y”) borne by those who officiate in the pujas (rites). Even on this basis the Kanchi Temple is definitely Vadakalai. If the temple’s character is to be determined on the basis of service-holders, the majority of the services like Vedaparaayanam, Puraanam reading, Stotra-patam, Mantrapushpam etc., are by long tradition only in the hands of the Vadakalais. The Tenkalais have only the “Adhyaapakam” (the Tamil “prabhandam”) service in which the Vadakalais also participate.
12. The Tenkalai narrative has another argument against the Vadakalai: It seeks further to contrast the Thaathacharyas with the “Jeeyar, Ekaangi, Sthalathaar” etc. i.e. the priestly legatees who had been granted by Sri Ramanuja himself their hereditary rights and exclusive privileges in-perpetuity to conduct the religious or sacerdotal affairs of Sri Rangam, Tirumala and Melkote temples. Since no such anointment or ordainment had been made by Sri Ramanujacharya in the case of the Kanchipuram Thaathaacharya-lineage – who were appointed only by the Vijayanagara Kings, after all, —  they could not legitimately claim to be duly instituted stewards of the Sri Varadaraja Swami Temple.
13. Such a narrative of the Tenkalais is countered stoutly by yet another Vadakalai counter-intuitive narrative.
14. So what if Sri Ramanujacharya did not himself in person — or through the sanction of any sacred “kovil ozhukku” for the Kanchi temple — ordain the Thaathacharyas?! Is it not the due mandate of Thaathachaarya-s to exercise power of oversight and control over the temple of Kanchi by virtue of being direct descendants of a galaxy of Acharyas such as Sri Pillaan, Sri Tirumala Nambi and Sri Naathamuni? And do they not also enjoy legitimacy because they were appointees of the great Vedantaacharya, Sri Vedanta Desikan, he who himself adorns an exalted position in the long post-Ramanuja “acharya paramparai” of the “ubaya vedantins”?!

-V-

THE POST-INDEPENDENCE ERA:

The continuing saga of Sri Vaishnava deracination

By the end of the 20th century CE, and after more than 200+ years of colonial and post-Independence history in India when the community of “ubaya-vedantins” in Tamil Nadu experienced wrenching social changes and political developments as they swept through the land, the identity of Sri Vaishnava as “ubhaya vedantins” was deracinated and broken.

• The “ubaya-vedantin’s” first language, Sanskrit was considered all but “dead”.
• His traditional educational values — Vedic, Vedantic and Dharmic studies — were rendered obsolete and irrelevant by the politics of neo-Dravidianism in Tamil Nadu.  
• The social order, “varna-ashrama” in which Sri Vaishnavas had for centuries been held in high esteem, stood outlawed by the new Constitutional order of the country.
• The control of Sri Vaishnava temples which they had held in long hereditary continuity was wrested away from them under new laws and statutes of the State (HR&CE ACT) and it passed into the hands of the State.
• Their access to the tangible commonwealth of their temples was taken away while temple riches were being expropriated at will by the State in every which way possible under sanction or cover of law or statute.
• Their claim to priestly rights, traditional entitlements and privileges in the temple-ecosystem was whittled down drastically — and from being once-upon-a-time principal actors, custodians and curators, they got reduced to mere employee or minion-status within the temple ecosystem.
• The elected rulers and governments of the day, far from being their benefactors or patrons — as the kings of the Vijayanagara dynasty had been to all Sri Vaishnavas once upon a time in history — were openly antagonistic or inimical towards them.
• Their most sacred scriptures, literature, liturgical practices and traditional customs were mocked at openly — as being quaint, superstitious, socially discriminative, abhorrent and irrelevant — by large sections of the rest of society who had been programmed by propaganda to turn hostile to all things considered “Aryan Brahminism”.
• Sri Vaishnavas were forced to migrate in large masses out of their simple, rural habitats in the villages and into the roiling anonymous melting-pots of India’s burgeoning Urbania… in desperate search of modern, secular education, of employment and careers. Thousands of families had even moved on leaving behind their Sri Vaishnavite roots to immigrate to the far shores of North America to pursue lucrative but forlorn careers and livelihoods….

-VI-

THE POST-INDEPENDENCE ERA:

Endless Litigation

As sectarian bitterness and rivalry intensified, the two Kalais started clashing within the Kanchi temple picking fights with each other constantly on matters of ritual, custom, litanies, protocol and practices in worship – many of which were frivolous, petty-minded and mean-spirited. The clashes broke out into sporadic incidents of violence and show of ill-temper too towards each other in assemblies and on festive occasions. (Even as this Note is being written on 19 January 2024, there are news reports of an unfortunate violent fracas that broke out between the Tenkalai and Vadakalai “goshti-s” as they went in a religious procession in Pazhayaseevaram, Kanchi).

All these clashes have gone into rancorous litigation and intractable court cases which have been dragging on and on for decades on end.

1. This very poisonous idea of resorting frequently to civil litigation first in the British courts of law in pre-Independence times — forswearing the wisdom of the ancient codes of justice in the “dharma-sastraas” — to resolve even minor intra-communal matters of religious and civil disputes or contention was first seeded into the Tenkalai and Vadakalai mindset back in 1792 CE.
2. The disputes however continue to this day even in 2024! And a few of them remain unresolved despite the courts trying to exercise their wisdom in arriving at some fair judgements.
3. Most such cases relate to matters like which litany Vadakalai or Tenkalai, i.e. “saatrumarai” procedure has the right of precedence over the other at various shrines in Sri Rangam or Kanchipuram and other important divya desam temples, on festive days when idols of either the Deity or Acharyas are taken out in procession. Or which Vedic chants and Divya Prabhandham hymns must be allowed or disallowed during the ritual proceedings of the temple.
4. The Tenkalais arrogate to themselves the exclusive privilege of chanting the Azhwar Divya Prabhandhams inside the temple while the Vadakalais insist upon their right to chant the Veda and the Desika Prabhandhams and Sanskrit “Stotra” during pre-designated times at the temple.
5. To anyone in the world outside the Sri Vaishnava community, it would appear strange and even ridiculous to know that the Vadakalai and Tenkalai temple service called “saatrumarai sevai” and “vaazhi tirunaamam”” is really nothing more than singing a litany of paeans in the Tamil language to the memory of their respective “acharya parampara”. As expressions of devotion to their long lineage of saints and preceptors, both litanies are virtually the same in spirit and sentiment… But in letter they are, of course, mutually exclusive and they arouse in each other’s minds bitterly antipathetic feelings. But if one were to give serious thought to the very purpose and rationale of the “saatrumarai” and “vaazhi tirunaamam” litanies, they are not even truly religious or theological in character. They are simply expressions of adulation and commemoration of Acharyas, not Divinity.

-VII-

QUO VADIS, “UBHAYA VEDANTA”?

Behind such ostensibly sectarian disputes between Tenkalai and Vadakalai is the raw, undeniable reality of competition and power-struggles to seize absolute control and dominance over temple property and social influence.

Now, why must good and pious “ubaya vedaantins” fight for control in such a vicious fashion?

• Control over a big temple like the one at Sri Rangam or Kanchipuram easily paves the way for vested interests on both sides to pander to much larger and more powerful external political-interest groups and alignments.
• It also helps to ingratiate State patronage. In Tamil Nadu today it means also a way to remain socially relevant in a tense political milieu that is already riven by other more invidious forms of “identity-politics”, linguistic chauvinism, rabidly racist theories that pollute social discourse and finally, the evangelism of minority-religions…
• The nature of the extremely complex post-industrial and post-Marxist social ecosystem in which Sri Vaishnavite temples manage to survive and function today can hardly be ever compared to what prevailed as simple rural, caste-based social order and ecosystems during the times of the Pallava, Chola, Pandya or Vijayanagar empires.

A historical 200-year-old sectarian squabble has thus finally led to the Sri Vaishnava identity getting severely fractured. Both the Vadakalai and Tenkalai sects, inebriated by “identity intoxication”, compete with each other today to be different and exclusive in many ways…. be it customs, weddings, modes of household worship such as tiruvaaraadanam etc., or even sartorial attire and deportment. But most egregiously of all, they have each sworn never to amicably settle their differences in the matter of administering their temples — and especially the Kanchipuram Sri Devarajaswamy Perumal temple. No… not certainly in the old, united and broad-minded, “inclusive”, and “pluralistic” spirit of “ubaya Vedanta”.

-VIII-

CAN THE SECTARIAN FAULT-LINES OF SRI VAISHNAVAS BE BRIDGED?

1. The 300-year-old sectarian animosities first arose in the 14^th-15^th century CE from purely abstruse theological and antinomian differences (ref: to the 19^th century CE treatise on the subject titled “ashtadasha bheda vichaara” authored by one, Varavaramuni). The “Muttaadhi Pathis”, pontiffs or Acharyas of the two sects and “sampradaayams” have not shown any sign of assuming religious leadership in resolving the matter. Their posture over the decades has remained one of blithe or helpless laissez-faire ….
2. The Judges of the various civil courts of the land too have tried their best to find workable resolutions for the sectarian conflicts in a plethora of lawsuits since 1800s. But no verdict of their Lordships has ever brought closure and settlement to the bitter rivalry of the Tenkalai and Vadakalai in Kanchipuram and in other Sri Vaishnava temples in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Telengana.
3. The intractable nature of the sectarian conflict is such that it is not amenable to legal or juridical resolution. The conflict which once was purely theological has unfortunately today metastasized as just another one of those symptoms of larger socio-political dynamics of the State. It has also become a minor theatre in the larger “culture war” being staged in the country.
4. Judges of the Courts however can and should strive to explore all possibilities for finding lasting resolutions to the sectarian conflict within the quasi-juridical ambit of Law and broad parameters of religious interventions . It can be done however only with the active involvement, help and collaboration of the Muttaadhipathis of both sects.
5. Below is a suggested, tentative religious manifesto outlining such parameters.
6. The suggested parameters might seem radical, disruptive idealistic, even utopian to many Acharyas and acolytes. But none of them can be dismissed as unworkable. It must not be forgotten that 1000 years ago, Ramanuja’s many temple and religious reforms were regarded as revolutionary, radical and very disruptive too by the then Sri Vaishnavite orthodoxy and laity. But Ramanuja’s reforms eventually succeeded. Today too, both the Judges of Law and the Sri Vaishnava religious Acharyas must remind themselves that “where there is a will, there is always a way”:

1. Banishing forever from the lexicon of Sri Vaishnavism the two terms “Tenkalai” and “Vadakalai”… and using only the one term to describe the community which Ramanujacharya used viz. “ubaya vedantin”.
2. Banishing from the lexicon of Sri Vaishnavism the term “tennaachaarya sampradayam” and “desika sampradayam” and replacing them both with the single identification viz. “ramanuja-sampradayam”.
3. Rewriting, updating and releasing a new authentic biography of Sri Ramanujacharya shorn of all hagiography, apocrypha, legends, panegyric and unverifiable facts of history.
4. Erasing the symbols of the two sects — the “Y” and the “U” naamam — from being displayed externally on walls, gopurams, ramparts, mantapams and towers in all Sri Vaishnava temples. Leaving untouched only the symbols as they exist today upon the idols of the presiding Deities in all Sri Vaishnava temples.
5. Removing all idols, icons and “sannidhis” inside the precincts of Sri Vaishnava temples other than those of the divine Deities — i.e. the “divya dampathi”, Sriman Narayana and his Consorts, and their own divine retinue. Letting the idols/sannidhis of Sri Vaishnava Acharyas to be shifted out, relocated, installed and worshipped in sannidhis elsewhere in separate complexes situated outside at a distance from the main temple sanctum and its precincts.
6. Ceasing the practice of recitals in all Sri Vaishnava temples of the choral chant of “sattrumarai kramam” and “vaazhi tirunaamam” (i.e. no more “Sri Sailesa dayaa paathram”, and no more “raamanuja dayaa paathram”…. etc.). In other words, these recitals shall be henceforth confined to Sri Vaishnava homes and households only and publicly allowed only within the own premises of Sri Vaishnava “muttams”, monasteries and seminaries of the respective sects).
7. Instituting a common, unified and harmonized litany of “saatrumarai”, “seva kaalam” and other “uthsava” protocols, procedures, ceremony and “kramam” services in all Sri Vaishnava temples. The new harmonized litanies — composed both in Sanskrit and Tamizh — shall bear the joint imprimatur and blessings of a newly instituted “ubaya-sampradaya” Council comprising principal, nominated Sri Vaishnava Acharyas, high-priests “muttaadipathis”, “jeeyars”, “Acharya purushas” and “Agama saastra” pundits.
8. Acharyas and Jeeyars shall commission the gigantic mission-mode task of writing modern, contemporaneous “sthala-puranas” for each of the 100-odd Sri Vaishnava temples in as many Indian languages and English as possible. While the “puranic” (mythological) accounts of the temples are retained intact, the modern “sthala puranas” shall strive to record and chronicle as accurately as possible the entire secular history/ historiography of the temple i.e. how it was originally built, who sponsored and built it, the chronology of its successive administrators, important historical and political events that impacted on the upkeep and administration of the temple, details of temple wealth, and of the origins of such wealth, the various highs and low points in the history of the temple… and how and why it has to come to bear its present state and condition of existence….
9. The leading lights and eminent luminaries of both the Tenkalai and Vadakalai communities (i.e. temple trustees, custodians and curators) shall pledge solemnly in writing to their respective Acharyas and Jeeyars that they will never again seek to resolve inter- and intra-sectarian disputes related to any aspect of temple-administration and control through the litigious process and route of the civil courts in the land. All such disputes, pleas and appeals shall henceforth be referred only to the “ubaya-sampradaya” Council comprising all Sri Vaishnava Acharyas, “muttaadipathis”, “jeeyars”, “Acharya purushas” and “Agama saastra” pundits. The Council’s verdict alone shall be accepted without demur as final and binding.
10. Sworn undertaking solemnly executed in writing shall be given by both Tenkalai and Vadakalai community-leaders (temple trustees, Jeeyars, Acharyas, custodians, curators etc.) to their respective sect religious-heads that all current litigious cases pending in the courts of the land shall be withdrawn. Claims and counter-claims preferred therein shall be withdrawn with immediate effect. In other words, the undertaking shall serve as an inter-sectarian treaty which will voluntarily recognize all temples currently under the control of the Tenkalai temples to be undisputed Tenkalai temples — and, vice versa, all Vadakalai temples currently under the control of Vadakalai temples shall be undisputed Vadakalai temples. In other words, one sect shall surrender all forms of claims or counter-claims to the temples of the other. “Live and Let Be”… shall be the overriding principle governing all sectarian relationships going forward.

• The “ubaya-sampradaya” Council comprising all Sri Vaishnava Acharyas, “muttaadipathis”, “jeeyars”, “Acharya purushas” and “Agama saastra” pundits shall by unanimous and mutual consent institute, affirm and coronate a new, common, unified and harmonized “acharya parampara” or lineage of Sri Vaishnava Acharyas. This new “acharya paramaparai” shall henceforth be acknowledged, feted and venerated by all Sri Vaishnavas irrespective of any sectarian distinction.

-CONCLUDED-