Shri Sampraday

One of the four branches (sampraday)
of the Bairagi Naga ascetics. The Bairagi
Nagas are devotees (bhakta) of the god
Vishnu, organized in military fashion
into different anis or “armies.” Until the
beginning of the nineteenth century
their primary occupation was as mercenary soldiers, although they also had
substantial trading interests; both of
these have largely disappeared in contemporary times. The Shri Sampraday
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Shri Sampraday
traces its spiritual lineage through the
poet-saint Ramananda to the southern
Indian philosopher Ramanuja, who is
claimed to have been Ramananda’s guru.
This claim can also be seen in the name
of the sampraday, since Ramanuja’s followers, the Shrivaishnavas, focus their
worship on Vishnu and Shri (Lakshmi).
Yet the Ramanandi ascetics worship an
entirely different pair of deities—Rama
and Sita—and the claim of any connections between the Ramanandis and the
Shrivaishnavas was formally renounced
at the Ujjain Kumbha Mela in 1921, at
the insistence of the Shrivaishnavas. As
with another Bairagi order, the Brahma
Sampraday, the claim to be connected
to a famous religious figure seems to be
a way to gain the authority and prestige
of an ancient and established tradition.
Even without this claim, the Shri
Sampraday is the largest and the most
important of the Bairagi Naga orders.
For further information see Peter van
der Veer, Gods on Earth, 1988.