Ramanuj was the first great Vishnuite prophet, and lived in southern
India in the eleventh or twelfth century on an island in the Kaveri
river near Trichinopoly. He preached the worship of a supreme spirit,
Vishnu and his consort Lakshmi, and taught that men also had souls
or spirits, and that matter was lifeless. He was a strong opponent
of the cult of Siva, then predominant in southern India, and of
phallic worship. He, however, admitted only the higher castes into
his order, and cannot therefore be considered as the founder of the
liberalising principle of Vishnuism. The superiors of the Ramanuja
sect are called Acharya, and rank highest among the priests of the
Vishnuite orders. The most striking feature in the practice of the
Ramanujis is the separate preparation and scrupulous privacy of their
meals. They must not eat in cotton garments, but must bathe, and then
put on wool or silk. The teachers allow their select pupils to assist
them, but in general all the Ramanujis cook for themselves, and should
the meal during this process, or while they are eating, attract even
the look of a stranger, the operation is instantly stopped and the
viands buried in the ground. The Ramanujis address each other with the
salutation Dasoham, or 'I am your slave,' accompanied with the Pranam
or slight inclination of the head and the application of joined hands
to the forehead. To the Acharyas or superiors the other members of the
sect perform the Ashtanga or prostration of the body with eight parts
touching the ground. The _tilak_ or sect-mark of the Ramanujis consists
of two perpendicular white lines from the roots of the hair to the top
of the eyebrows, with a connecting white line at the base, and a third
central line either of red or yellow. The Ramanujis do not recognise
the worship of Radha, the consort of Krishna. The mendicant orders
of the Satanis and Dasaris of southern India are branches of this sect.