The Great Traditions
Vaishnava, Shaiva, Shakta, Smarta — four great families of devotion, each with its own Lord, scriptures and marks on the brow, and most Hindus quietly at home in more than one.
Look at the foreheads in a Malaysian temple crowd. Three horizontal stripes of white ash with a red dot. A white U with a red line through it. A single bright dot of kumkum. Each mark says something about who its wearer worships and how — and yet all three may stand side by side at the same lamp. Hinduism has no single church, but it does have great traditions: lineages of teaching and worship centred on one supreme form of the divine. This page introduces the four largest and three smaller ones.
What makes a tradition
The Sanskrit word is sampradāya, “that which is handed over”: a stream of teaching passed from teacher to disciple. Broadly, the great traditions are named for the deity they hold supreme — Vishnu (Vaiṣṇava), Shiva (Śaiva), the Goddess, Devī or Śakti (Śākta) — plus the Smārta tradition, which honours several deities as equal forms of one Brahman. Within each are many smaller lineages, each with its own teachers, monasteries and philosophy.
Historians see these traditions taking clear shape in the centuries around the turn of the Common Era, as the epics and the early Purāṇas raised Vishnu, Shiva and the Goddess far above the Vedic gods. Each tradition, in its own telling, is far older — rooted in the Vedas themselves, rightly understood. Both stories are told on The Puranas and Agamas & Tantras.
The four, side by side
Tap each tradition. Each panel speaks from inside that tradition; its claim that its own deity is supreme is its view, not this guide’s. Each tradition’s view
Supreme Lord: Vishnu–Nārāyaṇa, with his consort Lakṣmī, who descends as his avatars, above all Rama and Krishna (for some lineages Krishna himself is the source of all). See Vishnu & the Ten Avatars.
Scriptures: the Gītā, the Viṣṇu and Bhāgavata Purāṇas, the Pāñcarātra Āgamas, and in Tamil the Āḻvārs’ Divya Prabandham.
Philosophies: Viśiṣṭādvaita (Ramanuja), Dvaita (Madhva), and the schools on Other Vedantas — Nimbārka, Vallabha, Chaitanya. Tradition groups the classical lineages as four sampradāyas: Śrī, Brahma, Rudra and Kumāra.
Centres: Srirangam, Tirupati, Udupi, Puri, Vrindavan, Pandharpur, Dvārakā, Badrinath.
Festivals: Vaikuṇṭha Ekādaśī, Krishna Janmāṣṭamī, Rāma Navamī, and the Tamil month of Puraṭṭāci, sacred to Perumal.
Supreme Lord: Shiva, with his consort Pārvatī and sons Gaṇeśa and Murugan; worshipped above all in the liṅga, and as Naṭarāja, the cosmic dancer.
Scriptures: the Śrī Rudram of the Yajurveda (see The Four Vedas), the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad, the Śaiva Āgamas, the Śiva and Liṅga Purāṇas, and in Tamil the twelve Tirumurai, including the Nāyaṉmārs’ Tēvāram.
Philosophies: Shaiva Siddhanta, dominant in the Tamil country; Kashmir Shaivism; the Vīraśaivas or Liṅgāyats of Karnataka, founded on the teaching of Basava; and the ancient ascetic Pāśupatas.
Centres: Varanasi, Chidambaram, Madurai, Tiruvannamalai, Kedarnath, and the twelve jyotirliṅgas (“liṅgas of light”).
Festivals: Mahāśivarātri; Ārudrā Darśanam, honouring Naṭarāja; and the twice-monthly Pradoṣam.
Supreme reality: the Goddess — Devī, Śakti, the Divine Mother — as Durgā, Kālī, Lalitā Tripurasundarī, Pārvatī, and the village Ammans. See Devi — the Divine Mother.
Scriptures: the Devī Māhātmya, the Devī Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the Śākta Tantras, the Lalitā Sahasranāma and the Saundaryalaharī.
Philosophies and lineages: Śrī Vidyā, the worship of Lalitā through the śrīcakra; the Kālī-centred lineages of Bengal and Assam; and Śākta readings that draw on Kashmir Shaivism and Advaita.
Centres: the śakti-pīṭhas, “seats of the Goddess” — Kamakhya in Assam, Kalighat in Kolkata and, in popular reckoning, Vaishno Devi in Jammu — and in the south Kanchipuram’s Kāmākṣī and Madurai’s Mīnākṣī.
Festivals: Navaratri and Durgā Pūjā; Kālī Pūjā at the new moon of Deepavali in Bengal; the Tamil month of Āṭi, sacred to the Amman.
The divine: one Brahman, worshipped through five equal forms; the worshipper chooses one as the centre.
Scriptures: the name means “following the smṛti” — Smārtas give special weight to the Vedas, the Dharmaśāstras and the Purāṇas, and to orthodox household ritual.
Philosophy: overwhelmingly Advaita Vedanta.
Centres: the monasteries (maṭhas) tradition traces to Adi Shankara — Sringeri, Dvārakā, Puri and Jyotirmath; the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham claims the same descent, though the claim is disputed.
Festivals: all of them — Shankara Jayantī is special to the tradition.
Marks on the brow
A tilaka is a sacred mark worn on the forehead, and often on the arms and chest too. It marks the body as belonging to God. Tap each to learn its meaning. Community practice Styles vary from lineage to lineage and family to family; many people simply wear what their parents wore, or a dot of kumkum or ash after any temple visit.
Five gods on one altar
The Smārta home shrine has a distinctive arrangement, the pañcāyatana, “five abodes”: Vishnu, Shiva, Devī, Sūrya and Gaṇeśa. The family’s chosen deity sits in the centre, the other four at the corners; move a different deity to the centre and the whole family of five turns with it. Traditionally each is worshipped in a natural stone rather than a carved image — the black śālagrāma for Vishnu, the river-smoothed bāṇa-liṅga for Shiva, and others for the rest. Community practice
When Murugan, as Skanda or Kumāra, is added, the six together are called ṣaṇmata, “six faiths”. Smārta tradition Smārta tradition honours Adi Shankara as ṣaṇmata-sthāpaka, the one who established these six forms of worship and reconciled their followers. Historians cannot trace the domestic rite back to Shankara himself, and the title appears in later hagiography; but the ideal it carries — one Brahman, worshipped in whichever form draws you — is the heart of the Smārta way.
Three smaller streams
Three other traditions once stood as distinct sampradāyas. Today they live mostly within the larger four, but each still has its devotees:
गणGāṇapatyaGaṇeśa supreme
Devotees for whom Gaṇeśa is not only the remover of obstacles but the supreme Lord. Their scriptures are the Gaṇeśa and Mudgala Purāṇas and the Gaṇapati Atharvaśīrṣa. The tradition is strongest in Maharashtra, around the saint Moraya Gosavi of Chinchwad and the eight Aṣṭavināyaka temples, with Morgaon at their head.
सूर्यSaurathe Sun supreme
Worship of Sūrya, the Sun, as the visible face of God. It flourished from the Gupta period into the early second millennium — the sun temples of Modhera in Gujarat (11th century) and Konark in Odisha (13th century) are its monuments — and survives in daily practice: the Gāyatrī, offerings of water at dawn, and the Tamil harvest festival of Pongal.
स्कन्दKaumāraMurugan supreme
Devotion to Murugan — Skanda, Kumāra, Kārttikeya — as the supreme God. In the north he faded; in the Tamil country he became, for many, the Tamil god, honoured in the six “battle camps” (Āṟupaṭaivīṭu) such as Palani and Tiruchendur, and in Aruṇakiri’s Tiruppukaḻ. Many Kaumāra devotees today see themselves as Śaivas.
How they live together
Most Hindus do not choose one tradition and refuse the rest. A Śaiva family will greet Gaṇeśa first, honour Vishnu at Puraṭṭāci and keep Navaratri for the Goddess. Much of a person’s tradition comes from family: the marks, the household deity, the temple one’s grandparents attended. Initiation into a lineage, with its own mantra and discipline, is a further and more personal step.
Coexistence has not always been peaceful. Sectarian Purāṇas sometimes belittle rival gods, and both Śrīvaiṣṇava and Śaiva hagiographies remember persecution — the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition, for instance, tells how Ramanuja fled a Chola king who demanded he declare Shiva supreme — and Tamil Śaiva hagiography also celebrates violence against Jains, such as the Madurai impalement after Sambandar’s victory: legend to historians, but telling of how rivalry was remembered. Popular tradition But the tradition also produced powerful images of reconciliation: Harihara, half Vishnu and half Shiva in one body, worshipped at Sankarankovil in Tamil Nadu as Sankaranarayanar; the stories of Vishnu as Pārvatī’s brother, giving her away at her wedding to Shiva in Madurai; and the Smārta ideal of the five.
Each tradition sincerely holds that its Lord is supreme, and has argued the point with great learning. This guide does not decide between them. Its frame is the one set out on One and Many: one divine reality, approached through many forms — itself closest to the Smārta and modern view, as that page notes.
In Malaysia
Community practice Most Malaysian Hindus are Tamil, and their background is broadly Śaiva, shaped by Shaiva Siddhanta and the Tēvāram. Two loves stand out. One is Murugan: the hill temple at Batu Caves, which draws vast crowds at Thaipusam, and Penang’s Arulmigu Balathandayuthapani, the “Waterfall” hilltop temple. The other is the Amman, the Goddess as Mariamman and her sisters, whose temples began on the plantations and are now in every town. Perumal (Vishnu) temples serve a smaller Vaiṣṇava community; Telugu, Malayali, Sri Lankan Tamil, Punjabi and North Indian Hindus bring their own traditions; and modern movements — the Divine Life Society, ISKCON, the Sathya Sai organisation and others — have large followings. Many families draw on several at once.
Match the mark or the place to its tradition:
Three horizontal lines of sacred ash.
The tripuṇḍra of vibhūti, sacred to Shiva.
Which deity is NOT one of the five in the pañcāyatana?
The five are Vishnu, Shiva, Devī, Sūrya and Gaṇeśa; adding Skanda makes the ṣaṇmata.
Shaiva Siddhanta and the Tēvāram belong mainly to…
Shaiva Siddhanta is the dominant Śaiva theology of the Tamil country — and of most Malaysian Tamil Hindus’ background.
Śrī Vidyā, the worship of Lalitā through the śrīcakra, is…
A Śākta lineage — though many Smārta teachers also practise it.
Questions people often ask
Do I have to belong to one tradition?
No. Most Hindus belong to a family tradition loosely and honour all the great deities. Formal belonging usually comes through initiation (dīkṣā) from a teacher of a particular lineage — something many devout Hindus never take.
Are Śaivas and Vaiṣṇavas different religions?
They are different traditions within one family. They share the Vedas, the epics, the idea of karma and liberation, and many festivals and temples; they differ on which form of God is supreme and on many theological details. Their relationship is closer to that of sister schools than of separate faiths.
Why do so many people wear both ash and kumkum?
Because many people honour both Shiva and the Goddess — the ash for him, the red for her — and because temple priests often give both as prasāda. In everyday life the marks are as much blessing as badge.
॥ Pause and reflect
- Which tradition was your family’s — and do you know how far back it goes?
- If you set up a pañcāyatana, which deity would you place at the centre, and why?
- What helps different traditions live together well, in your experience?
Your notes are saved privately in this browser.
Key terms on this page
Sources & further reading
- Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism (Cambridge University Press, 1996) — chapters on the Vaiṣṇava, Śaiva and Goddess traditions.
- Klaus K. Klostermaier, A Survey of Hinduism (SUNY Press, 3rd edn, 2007).
- Gudrun Bühnemann, Pūjā: A Study in Smārta Ritual (De Nobili Research Library, Vienna, 1988).
- David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition (University of California Press, 1986).
- Fred W. Clothey, The Many Faces of Murukan̲: The History and Meaning of a South Indian God (Mouton, 1978).
- Carl Vadivella Belle, Thaipusam in Malaysia: A Hindu Festival Misunderstood? (ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, 2017).
- Indira Viswanathan Peterson, Poems to Śiva: The Hymns of the Tamil Saints (Princeton University Press, 1989).