Shaivism and Vaishnavism - Two Exclusive Clubs

More than a decade ago, I heard in graduate school a joke -

Q) What are the three degrees of egoism?
A) I, Iyer, Iyengar

This probably does not make any sense to a Non-Indian and even amongst Indians it is understood best by South Indians. Iyers and Iyengars are two sects of Brahmins predominantly from Southern India. The joke (if it is not clear) is about their snootiness

and therein lies the irony; first some back ground ...

Sometime in 11th century Ramanuja initiated a philosophy what ended up resulting in the sect Sri Vaishnavas or Iyengars. Ramanuja disagreed with the prevailing orthodoxy, which was the Advaita school of thought (that in its time was revolutionary) and Iyers follow Shankara's school of thought.

This post started with a joke, promised an irony. Now you are merely left with boredom. So to tide over the boredom let me recount a story, sorry I mean two stories, one attributed to Shankara and the other to Ramanuja.

While on a walk, some disciples of Shankara were supposed to have shooed a person of lower caste to which this person asked them how that was possible since the same entity (Brahman) that pervaded him also pervaded Shankara. Shankara acknowledged the validity of this argument and is supposed to have apologized.

In the case of Ramanuja, his teacher taught him a powerful mantra, but adjured him to keep it a secret. Those who repeated this mantra were supposed to attain Salvation. Ramanuja immediately called all people, irrespective of caste and creed, to assemble before the temple. He then stood on top of the tower above the front gate of the temple, and shouted out the sacred Mantra to all of them at the top of his voice. His teacher was furious to which Ramanuja said that he would rather see millions attain salvation if that meant torture in hell for himself.

Then the irony as I see it is this;

Both stories clearly demonstrate that at least in the minds of these two men All men were equal. Both these sects were universal in their philosophy. To the best of my knowledge there is no mention of caste. How then do Iyers and Iyengars form two of the most exclusive clubs?