[Advaita-l] Temple Worship by all

[Satish Arigela]

>Interesting - the Pancharatra is more liberal than the Vaikhanasa! 

shrI varadarAja sharman already spoke about this. It is liberal in the sense that any varNa can be admitted into the pA~ncharAtra system. But non-brAhmaNa-s cannot become archaka-s in temples built even according to the pA~ncharAtra-Agama. As for vaikhAnasa, my understanding is that even a shrI-vaiShNava brAhmaNa cannot become a vaikhAnasa tAntrika. It is just hereditary I think..correct me if I am wrong.

There is an ancient shrine to nR^isiMha in a place called antarvedi in my district. There they have an an image of vikhanasa puruSha-muni. There is one in Tirumala also I read.

There are more vaikhAnasa-vaiShNava temples in Andhra than any where else.

>There
 is mention of the >Pancharatra in the Mahabharata, perhaps it is the 
same one?

They are the same. mahAbhArata refers to an earliest layer. The current day pA~ncharAtrika-s are slightly different as many changes happened over the centuries.

viShNu temples in Kerala are reasonably influenced by a work called the viShNu saMhita they say. It is listed as a pA~ncharAtra work but has in it worship of shAsta, dakShiNAmUrti, ganesha, the mAtR^ikA-s(brAhmI, chAmuNDI etc) and others.