Page:Hindu Gods and Heroes.djvu/106

104 of Saṃhitās, or manuals of doctrine and practice for the Pāñcharātra sect, which, though in essentials agreeing with the Nārāyaṇīya, taught a different theory of cosmogony and introduced the worship of the goddess Śrī or Lakshmī, the consort of Vishṇu, as the agency or energy through which the Supreme Being becomes active in finite existence; and in yet other places other texts were followed, such as those of the Vaikhānasa school. This worship of Vishṇu-Vāsudēva on the ancient lines was peculiarly vigorous among the representatives of Aryan culture in the South, who had introduced the cults of Vishṇu and Śiva with the rest of the Aryan pantheon into the midst of Dravidian animism. Hinduism, transplanted into the Dravidian area, has there remained more conservative than anywhere else, and has clung firmly to its ancient traditions. There is nothing of Dravidian origin in the South Indian worship of Vishṇu and Śiva; they are entirely Aryan importations. But they have become thoroughly assimilated in their southern home, and each of them has produced a huge mass of fine devotional literature in the vernaculars. In the Tamil country the church of Vishṇu boasts of the Nāl-āyira-prabandham, a collection of Tamil psalms numbering about 4,000 stanzas composed by twelve poets called Āl̤vārs, which were collected about 1000 A.D.; and the worship