Vaishnavism, as the name implies, means the particular theistic religion of which Vishnu is the object of worship and devotion as the Supreme God.
The germ of Vishunu’s later greatness and of sectarian Vaishnavism is traceable even in the Rigveda, and in the Later Vedic period he is regarded as the greatest god by at least one section of the people. But Vishnu was usually recognised as an aspect of the Sun in the Rigveda and associated in the Later Vedic texts more with sacrifice than with devotion and grace.
The Evolution of Vaishnavism: The first step in the evolution of Vaishnavism was the identification of Vasudeva Krishna with the Vedic deity Vishnu. This was accomplished by the time Bltagavatgita was composed, and thenceforth the Vasudeva cult or Bhagavata religion also came to be known as Vaishnava dharma.
A further stage in the same process was the identification of Vasudeva-Krishna-Vishnu with a deified sage (or hero) named Narayana. The origin of the conception of Narayana is differently given by different authorities. The earliest evidence regarding the identification of Narayana with Vishnu is probably to be traced in Baudhayana’s Dliarma-sutra. Here Narayana appears also as Hari and as “the deity eternal, supreme and lord”. According to the late
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Narayaniya section of the Santiparvan, Narayana, the eternal and the universal soul, was born as the son of Dharma in the quadruple form of Nara, Narayana, Hari, and Krishna.
R.G. Bhandarkar believes that Narayana has a cosmic character and is not a historical or mythological individual. He interprets the word Narayana as the resting place or goal of Nara, or a collection of Naras (i.e. men).
It, however, seems that the worshippers of the deified sage Narayana were originally known as Panchratrikas, who were later mixed up with the Bhagavatas worshipping Vasudeva according to the vidhi of the Satvata people, and that the Narayana cult originated in some part of the Himalayan region or its neighbourhood.
An important feature of Vaishnavism in the Gupta Age was the popular worship of the avataras, i.e. descents or incarnations of Vishnu. Epigraphic and literary records of the period throw light on the evolution of the theory of avatara, the germ of which is, however, to be traced in the Later Vedic literature.
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The conception of the Vamana (Dwarf) avatara associated with Vishnu, and that of the. Varaha (Boar), Mat- sya (Fish), and Kunna (Tortoise) avataras not yet connected with that god, are to be found in the Satapatha and other Brahmanas.
According to the Matsya Purana, which also gives a list of ten incarnations, there were three divine avataras, namely, Narayana, Narasimlia, and Vamana, as well as seven human avataras, namely, Dattatreya, Mandhatri, Rama son of Jamadagni, Rama son of Dasaratha, Vedavyasa, Buddha, and Kalki. Other Pancharatra words like the Vishvaksena-samhita mention the Buddha, Arjuna and others in the list of secondary avataras.
The Buddha is recognised as an avatara in the Dasavatara- Charita of the Kashmiri author Kshemendra (c. A.D. 1050). Jayadeva sings in praise of Krishna who is Vishnu himself, and of his ten avataras, namely, Fish, Tortoise, Boar, Man- lion, Dwarf, Rama Bhargava, Rama Dasarathi, Rama Haladhara, Buddha and Kalki. But the most important avatara whose worship was very popular in different parts of India in the Gupta Age seems to have been Varaha or the Boar.
According to some scholars, Bhagavatism and Pancharatra, which were possibly related at the beginning, became completely different in the Gupta period. It seems that originally the Pancharatrikas were devotees of the deified sage Narayana, and the Bhagavatas of the deified Vrishni hero Vasudeva, the two sects being later amalgamated in an attempt to identify Narayana and Vasudeva; but the names Bhagavata and Vasihnava were sometimes used to indicate Vishnu worshippers in general. The Gupta Age witnessed the evolution of neo-Vaishnavism from the tribal form of Bhagavatism practised originally by the members of Vasudeva’s family.
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Another feature of Vaishnavism in the Gupta period is the conception of Lakshmi or Sri as Vishnu’s wife. A second wife of Vishnu was supposed to be the Earth, called Vaishnavi in some epigraphs, e.g. those of the Sarabhapura kings. With the emergence of new gods and goddesses like Durga, Kartika and Ganesa, some older deities lost their prestige. One notable example is Samkarshana.
The tendency to regard some of the goddesses as indispensable consorts of the major gods led to the multiple matrimonial alliances of Sri and Sarasvati. This was followed by the still later conception in North India (especially Bengal) of Lakshmi and Sarasvati as the two wives of Vishnu, placed on the two sides of Vishnu’s image. Identification of Lakshmi with Durga, Abma, Devi or Ekanamsa is also not unknown.
Like the cult of Narayana-Vishnu, the cult of Sri-Lakshmi also seems to have acquired the features of many tribal and local mother goddesses and assimilated their methods of worship.