Marking Identity: The Debate on the Śrīvaiṣṇavas’ Forehead Marks

Abstract

Marking one’s forehead plays a role in identifying one’s identity in various sectarian traditions in India, from the premodern period to the modern day. One such tradition is the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition, the most influential Vaiṣṇava tradition of South India, of which the practice of marking one’s forehead was well established since the premodern time. In this article, I investigate the meanings of forehead marks or the ūrdhvapuṇḍra within the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition. In particular, I compare the premodern discussions in the Sanskrit texts from the time of the most influential Śrīvaiṣṇava ācārya, Rāmānuja (traditional dates ca. 1017–1137), to the time of one of the most significant post-Rāmānuja ācāryas, Vedāntadeśika (traditional dates ca. 1268­­–1369), and the contemporary positions presented by Prativādi Bhayaṅkaram Aṇṇaṅkarācārya (1891–1983) in his Satsaṃpradāyārthasāranidhi (1947). I argue that the premodern debate on the superiority of the ūrdhvapuṇḍra among the sectarian marks of the Vaiṣṇavas and Śaivas was transformed into the dispute between the two Śrīvaiṣṇava subcommunities, the Teṉkalais and Vaṭakalais, in the present context. Moreover, the arguments and authoritative sources of the premodern authors differ markedly from what we find in the modern text, the Satsaṃpradāyārthasāranidhi. Despite this difference, marking one’s forehead has always been a way for the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition to indicate their religious identity and sectarian belonging from the past to the present.