Iyengar

Iyengar or Ayyangar or Aiyengar () is a caste of Hindu Brahmins of Tamil origin whose members follow the Visishtadvaita philosophy propounded by Ramanuja. They are found mostly in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Iyengar are divided into two religious sects, the Vadakalai and the Thenkalai. As with other Hindu communities, they are also classified based on their gothram, or patrilineal descent. The Iyengar community trace their origin in Tamil Nadu from the period of Ramanuja. But they are also migrated and settled in other South Indian states, mostly Karnataka. Iyengars usually display a mark on their forehead known as the Srivaishnava Urdhva Pundra. There are also several opinions regarding the etymology of Iyengar. These include that it derives from the word ayya-garu which turned into ayyangaaru and later on into ayengar. The term 'ayya' is the Prakrit version of the Sanskrit word arya which in Sanskrit means noble. Robert Lester says that the word ayyangaar, an alternative transliteration, was first used by Kandhaadai Ramanuja Ayyangaar of Tirupathi around 1450 AD. The Iyengar community traces its philosophical origins to Nathamuni, the first Sri Vaishnava acharya, who lived around 900 CE. He is traditionally believed to have collected the 4,000 works of Nammalvar and other alvars, the poet-saints of southern India who were intensely devoted to Vishnu on both an emotional and intellectual plane. The belief is that he set this collection - commonly called the Tamil Prabhandams - to music, and he introduced the devotional hymns of the alvars into worship, thus mixing their Tamil Veda with the traditional Vedas written in Sanskrit. A scriptural equivalence was accepted by the community that formed in acceptance of his works, with the Sanskrit texts considered to be metaphysical truth and the Tamil oral variants to be based on human experience of the same. This community became immersed in the dual-language worship in temples where issues of caste were of no concern. A century or so later, Ramanuja became the principal among religious leaders who formalised the efforts of Nathamuni as a theology. Ramanuja developed the philosophy of Visishtadvaita and has been described by Harold Coward as 'the founding interpreter of scripture.' While Anne Overzee says that he was a collator and interpreter rather than an original thinker, although showing originality in his method of synthesising the Tamil and Sanskrit sources, Ranjeeta Dutta has said that the two sets of sources 'continued to be parallel to each other and not incorporative' at this time.