[Footnote 563: At Kadur, Ujjeni, Benares, Śrîsailam and Kedarnâth in the Himalayas. In every Lingâyat village there is a monastery affiliated to one of these five establishments. The great importance attached to monastic institutions is perhaps due to Jain influence.] CHAPTER XXIX VISHNUISM IN SOUTH INDIA 1 Though Śivaism can boast of an imposing array of temples, teachers and scriptures in the north as well as in the south, yet Vishnuism was equally strong and after 1000 A.D. perhaps stronger. Thus Alberuni writing about north-western India in 1030 A.D. mentions Śiva and Durgâ several times incidentally but devotes separate chapters to Nârâyana and Vâsudeva; he quotes copiously from Vishnuite works[564] but not from sectarian Śivaite books. He mentions that the worshippers of Vishṇu are called Bhâgavatas and he frequently refers to Râma. It is clear that in giving an account of Vishnuism he considered that he had for all practical purposes described the religion of the parts of India which he knew. In their main outlines the histories of Vishnuism and Śivaism are the same. Both faiths first assumed a definite form in northern India, but both flourished exceedingly when transplanted to the south and produced first a school of emotional hymn writers and then in a maturer stage a goodly array of theologians and philosophers as well as offshoots in the form of eccentric sects which broke loose from Brahmanism altogether. But Vishnuism having first spread from the north to the south returned from the south to the north in great force, whereas the history of Śivaism shows no such reflux.[565] Śivaism remained comparatively homogeneous, but Vishnuism gave birth from the eleventh century onwards to a series of sects or Churches still extant and forming exclusive though not mutually hostile associations. The chief Churches or Sampradâyas bear the names of Sanakâdi, Śrî, Brahmâ and Rudra. The first three were founded by Nimbâditya, Râmânuja and Madhva respectively. The Rudra-sampradâya was rendered celebrated by Vallabha, though he was not its founder.