Brahmanism - elitism

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BRAHMANISM

 

In south India in some places Vaishnavas admitted that a man, woman or child of

any caste or even no caste could be blessed by Divine Grace. But only the

Brahmins because of their birthright are the special servants of Vishnu in this

world. They alone are pure by nature and thus entitled to perform the temple

rituals. This is elitism, and it seems that even Lord Vishnu Himself didn't

always like it. Ranganatha, the Vishnu murti at the temple of Rangakshetra in

Trichy, is said to have locked the head priest out of the sanctum sanctorum

because he had abused Tiruppan Alvar, a Vaishnava saint from the pariah caste

(nickname for a tribe of nomads in India). The murti refused to open the door

until the priest carried Tiruppan into the temple upon his shoulders.

 

 

 

Andal, another famous Vaishnava saint, was a young girl who stepped boldly into

the sanctum sanctorum to accept Ranganatha as her husband. As a class, women

are considered ritualistically impure and are not permitted to enter the altar

of the murti. But Vishnu does not care for ritualistic purity as much as pure

devotion. Andal was miraculously absorbed into Ranganatha and is honored today

as an expansion of Lakshmi, the feminine personification of Vishnu's spiritual

potency.