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Updated: May 29, 2025
The really important difference seems to be that the Tengalai or southern school is inclined to break away from Sanskrit tradition, to ignore the Vedas in practice and to regard the Tamil Nâlâyiram as an all-sufficient scripture, whereas the Vadagalais, though not rejecting the Nâlâyiram, insist on the authority of the Vedas.
Even more important in popular esteem is the fact that the Vadagalai sectarian mark ends between the eyebrows whereas the Tengalais prolong it to the tip of the nose. Odium theologicum is often bitterest between the sects which are most nearly related and accordingly we find that the Tengalais and Vadagalais frequently quarrel.
The Râmats, as his followers were called, are a numerous and respectable body in north India, using the same sectarian mark as the Vadagalais from whom they do not differ materially, although a Hindu might consider that their small regard for caste is a vital distinction.
Devotional theism was growing in Râmânuja's time. He could not break with the Upanishads and Vedantic tradition but he adapted them to the needs of his day. The followers of Râmânuja are at present divided into two schools known as Tengalais and Vadagalais, or southern and northern.
F. Max Müller, pp. 137-8. Sabhâp. XIV. Vishṇu Pur. v. xxxiv. Vishṇu Pur. Occasionally we hear of collisions between the followers of Vishṇu and Śiva or the desecration of temples by hostile fanatics. But such conflicts take place most often not between widely different sects but between subdivisions of the same sect, e.g., Tengalais and Vadagalais.
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