Vishnuswami

(“[He whose] Lord is Vishnu”)
According to tradition, the founder of
the Rudra Sampraday of the Vaishnava
760
Vishnuchittar
ascetics. (The Rudra Sampraday is one
of the four branches, “sampraday,” of
the Bairagi Naga ascetics, who are devotees (bhakta) of the god Vishnu; vaishnava refers to devotees of Vishnu.)
Vishnuswami was an ascetic, whom
some sources name as the guru of both
Jnaneshvar and Namdev. As his name
clearly shows, Vishnuswami was a
Vaishnava, although other than this little is known about him. His ascetic line
and its position as one of the four
Vaishnava ascetic sampradays have
been appropriated by the followers of
Vallabhacharya, whose Shuddadvaita,
or “Pure Monism,” stresses the worship
of Krishna, with Radha as his consort.