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Gaudiya Vaishnavism, ISKCON and Sri Vaishnavism each hold a variant, differently accounted stance toward Samadhi in this atlas. Reading each account individually finds two positions, not three, because ISKCON is Gaudiya Vaishnavism's own twentieth century international branch rather than a separate voice.

One Teaching, Two Names, Six Centuries Apart

Gaudiya Vaishnavism's own account: collected absorption "is held... as absorption in Krishna, reached through the chanting of the names rather than through seated withdrawal." ISKCON's own account, worded almost identically: collected absorption "is held in ISKCON as absorption in Krishna reached through chanting rather than through seated withdrawal." ISKCON, the Hare Krishna movement founded in the twentieth century, carries forward the Gaudiya Vaishnava teaching lineage founded by Chaitanya in the sixteenth; these are one teaching under two names rather than two traditions independently agreeing.

A Separate Vaishnava Voice

Sri Vaishnavism's own account names a genuinely different practice: collected absorption "is held in Sri Vaishnavism as sustained loving recollection," with no mention of chanting as the mechanism. Two positions, not three: one teaching stated twice under two of its own names across six centuries, and one separate Vaishnava school with its own devotional account of what the absorption actually is.

Where To Read More

• SamadhiMind, Self and EmptinessCollected absorption itself; three bodies counted, reducing to two because one is the other's modern branch
• Gaudiya VaishnavismHinduismAbsorption in Krishna reached through chanting rather than seated withdrawal, ISKCON's own parent lineage
• ISKCON (Hare Krishna)HinduismStates the identical teaching almost word for word, Gaudiya Vaishnavism's own twentieth century international branch
• Sri VaishnavismHinduismA separate account: sustained loving recollection, not chanting-specific