smarta

…m's four great streams, the Vaishnava, the Shaiva, the Shakta and the Smarta, each lifting a different face of the one reality to the centre of its devotion.

It is the panchayatana , the five-shrine arrangement of the Smarta household altar, where five images are set out with the worshipper's chosen deity in the centre.

The Smarta is, by name, a follower of smriti , the "remembered" texts that stand alongside the revealed Veda.

The Vaikhānasa uses only Vedic mantras and presents itself as Vedic, smārta , continuous with the orthodox fold; its priesthood is restricted to men born into Vaikhānasa families, the so-called garbha-Vaiṣṇavas…

This is the reading the Smarta tradition made its own, the tradition that keeps five deities on one altar and bows to the one behind all of them.

Sampradayas are usually grouped by the stream of the divine they serve, Vaishnava, Shaiva, Shakta and Smarta, and within each stream run many specific lineages.

The Smartas hold several deities together as forms of one brahman.

Shaivas centre Shiva. Smartas hold five deities as equal.