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Agamas
The Agama has three main divisions - Saiva (based on Siva as the Deity), Sakta (based on worship of Sakti as the Deity) , and vaishNava.
There are further sub-divisions among each of the Agama-s. The principal divisions in the vaishNava Agama are the vaikhAnasa and pAncarAtra.
In the historical evolution of the Agama-s, there have been several views over time -
- a) Agama-s are derived from the vedas,
- b) Agama and veda are both derived from a common root or mUla-veda,
- c) Agama-s are inferior to, and less authoritative than the veda, and
- d) Agama-s are superior to veda.
It was probably these kinds of differences that led to Sri YamunacArya's work titled Agama-prAmANya and Sri VedAnta desika's work titled SrI pAncarAtra rakshA. It should be noted that SrI vedAnta deSika has also written a work about the vaikhAnasa Agama titled sajjanavaibhava.
The development of the Agama schools gave great support to promoting the concept of bhakti by concentrating attention on one Deity, and to self-surrender. It also gave great support to art through temple architecture, devotional poetry, dance, etc.
See also: The Agamin Tradition and the Arts [Vol 1] [Vol 2] [Vol 3] [Vol 4] [Vol 5]