ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:

HINDUISM HODY, HUMPHREY

HINDU KUSH HOE, RICHARD MARCH

HINDUR HOE

HINGANGHAT HOEFNAGEL, JORIS

HINGE HOF

HINGHAM HOFER, ANDREAS

HINRICHS, HERMANN WILHELM HOFFDING, HARALD

HINSCHIUS, PAUL HOFFMANN, AUGUST HEINRICH

HINTERLAND HOFFMANN, ERNST THEODOR WILHELM

HINTON, JAMES HOFFMANN, FRANCOIS BENOIT

HIOGO HOFFMANN, FRIEDRICH

HIP HOFFMANN, JOHANN JOSEPH

HIP-KNOB HOFMANN, AUGUST WILHELM VON

HIPPARCHUS HOFMANN, JOHANN CHRISTIAN KONRAD VON

HIPPASUS OF METAPONTUM HOFMANN, MELCHIOR

HIPPEASTRUM HOFMEISTER, WILHELM FRIEDRICH BENEDICT

HIPPED ROOF HOFMEYR, JAN HENDRIK

HIPPEL, THEODOR GOTTLIEB VON HOFSTEDE DE GROOT, PETRUS

HIPPIAS OF ELIS HOGARTH, WILLIAM

HIPPO HOGG, JAMES

HIPPOCRAS HOGG, THOMAS JEFFERSON

HIPPOCRATES HOGMANAY

HIPPOCRENE HOGSHEAD

HIPPODAMUS HOHENASPERG

HIPPODROME HOHENFRIEDBERG

HIPPOLYTUS (Greek legend hunter) HOHENHEIM

HIPPOLYTUS (Church writer) HOHENLIMBURG

HIPPOLYTUS, THE CANONS OF HOHENLOHE

HIPPONAX HOHENSTAUFEN

HIPPOPOTAMUS HOHENSTEIN

HIPPURIC ACID HOHENZOLLERN

HIPURNIAS HOKKAIDO

HIRA HOKUSAI

HIRADO HOLBACH, PAUL HEINRICH DIETRICH

HIRE-PURCHASE AGREEMENT HOLBEACH

HIRING HOLBEIN, HANS (the elder)

HIROSAKI HOLBEIN, HANS (the younger)

HIROSHIGE HOLBERG, LUDVIG HOLBERG

HIROSHIMA HOLBORN

HIRPINI HOLCROFT, THOMAS

HIRSAU HOLDEN, HUBERT ASHTON

HIRSCH, MAURICE DE HOLDEN, SIR ISAAC

HIRSCH, SAMSON RAPHAEL HOLDERLIN, JOHANN CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH

HIRSCHBERG HOLDERNESSE, EARL OF

HIRSON HOLDHEIM, SAMUEL

HIRTIUS, AULUS HOLGUIN

HISHAM IBN AL-KALBI HOLIDAY

HISPELLUM HOLINSHED, RAPHAEL

HISSAR (district in Asia) HOLKAR

HISSAR (Indian town & district) HOLL, FRANK

HISTIAEUS HOLLAND, CHARLES

HISTOLOGY HOLLAND, SIR HENRY

HISTORY HOLLAND, HENRY FOX

HIT HOLLAND, HENRY RICH

HITA, GINES PEREZ DE HOLLAND, HENRY RICHARD VASSALL FOX

HITCHCOCK, EDWARD HOLLAND, JOSIAH GILBERT

HITCHCOCK, GEORGE HOLLAND, PHILEMON

HITCHCOCK, ROSWELL DWIGHT HOLLAND, RICHARD

HITCHIN HOLLAND (country)

HITTITES HOLLAND, COUNTY AND PROVINCE OF

HITTORFF, JACQUES IGNACE HOLLAND (Michigan, U.S.A.)

HITZACKER HOLLAND (cloth)

HITZIG, FERDINAND HOLLAR, WENZEL or WENCESLAUS

HIUNG-NU HOLLES, DENZIL HOLLES

HIVITES HOLLOWAY, THOMAS

HJORRING HOLLY

HKAMTI LONG HOLLYHOCK

HLOTHHERE HOLLY SPRINGS

HOACTZIN HOLMAN, JAMES

HOADLY, BENJAMIN HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL

HOAR, SAMUEL HOLMFIRTH

HOARE, SIR RICHARD COLT HOLOCAUST

HOBART, GARRET AUGUSTUS HOLOCENE

HOBART, JOHN HENRY HOLROYD, SIR CHARLES

HOBART PASHA HOLSTEIN, FRIEDRICH VON

HOBART (capital of Tasmania) HOLSTEIN (duchy of Germany)

HOBBEMA, MEYNDERT HOLSTEN, KARL CHRISTIAN JOHANN

HOBBES, THOMAS HOLSTENIUS, LUCAS

HOBBY HOLSTER

HOBHOUSE, ARTHUR HOBHOUSE HOLT, SIR JOHN

HOBOKEN (town of Belgium) HOLTEI, KARL EDUARD VON

HOBOKEN (New Jersey, U.S.A.) HOLTY, LUDWIG HEINRICH CHRISTOPH

HOBSON'S CHOICE HOLTZENDORFF, JOACHIM FRANZ PHILIPP VON

HOBY, SIR THOMAS HOLTZMANN, HEINRICH JULIUS

HOCHE, LAZARE HOLUB, EMIL

HOCHHEIM HOLY

HOCHST HOLY ALLIANCE, THE

HOCHSTADT HOLYHEAD

HOCHSTETTER, FERDINAND VON HOLY ISLAND

HOCKEY HOLYOAKE, GEORGE JACOB

HOCK-TIDE HOLYOKE

HOCUS HOLYSTONE

HODDEN HOLY WATER

HODDESDON HOLY WEEK

HODEDA HOLYWELL

HODENING HOLYWOOD

HODGE, CHARLES HOLZMINDEN

HODGKIN, THOMAS HOLZTROMPETE

HODGKINSON, EATON HOMAGE

HODGSON, BRIAN HOUGHTON HOMBERG, WILHELM

HODMEZO-VASARHELY HOMBURG-VOR-DER-HOHE

HODOGRAPH HOME, EARLS OF

HODSON, WILLIAM STEPHEN RAIKES

HINDUISM, a term generally employed to comprehend the social

institutions, past and present, of the Hindus who form the great

majority of the people of India; as well as the multitudinous crop of

their religious beliefs which has grown up, in the course of many

centuries, on the foundation of the Brahmanical scriptures. The actual

proportion of the total population of India (294 millions) included

under the name of "Hindus" has been computed in the census report for

1901 at something like 70% (206 millions); the remaining 30% being made

up partly of the followers of foreign creeds, such as Mahommedans,

Parsees, Christians and Jews, partly of the votaries of indigenous forms

of belief which have at various times separated from the main stock, and

developed into independent systems, such as Buddhism, Jainism and

Sikhism; and partly of isolated hill and jungle tribes, such as the

Santals, Bhils (Bhilla) and Kols, whose crude animistic tendencies have

hitherto kept them, either wholly or for the most part, outside the pale

of the Brahmanical community. The name "Hindu" itself is of foreign

origin, being derived from the Persians, by whom the river Sindhu was

called Hindhu, a name subsequently applied to the inhabitants of that

frontier district, and gradually extended over the upper and middle

reaches of the Gangetic valley, whence this whole tract of country

between the Himalaya and the Vindhya mountains, west of Bengal, came to

be called by the foreign conquerors "Hindustan," or the abode of the

Hindus; whilst the native writers called it "Aryavarta," or the abode

of the Aryas.

But whilst, in its more comprehensive acceptation, the term Hinduism

would thus range over the entire historical development of Brahmanical

India, it is also not infrequently used in a narrower sense, as denoting

more especially the modern phase of Indian social and religious

institutions--from the earlier centuries of the Christian era down to

our own days--as distinguished from the period dominated by the

authoritative doctrine of pantheistic belief, formulated by the

speculative theologians during the centuries immediately succeeding the

Vedic period (see BRAHMANISM). In this its more restricted sense the

term may thus practically be taken to apply to the later bewildering

variety of popular sectarian forms of belief, with its social

concomitant, the fully developed caste-system. But, though one may at

times find it convenient to speak of "Brahmanism and Hinduism," it must

be clearly understood that the distinction implied in the combination of

these terms is an extremely vague one, especially from the chronological

point of view. The following considerations will probably make this

clear.

Connexion with Brahmanism.

The characteristic tenet of orthodox Brahmanism consists in the

conception of an absolute, all-embracing spirit, the Brahma (neutr.),

being the one and only reality, itself unconditioned, and the original

cause and ultimate goal of all individual souls (_jiva_, i.e. living

things). Coupled with this abstract conception are two other doctrines,

viz. first, the transmigration of souls (_samsara_), regarded by Indian

thinkers as the necessary complement of a belief in the essential

sameness of all the various spiritual units, however contaminated, to a

greater or less degree, they may be by their material embodiment; and in

their ultimate re-union with the _Paramatman_, or Supreme Self; and

second, the assumption of a triple manifestation of the ceaseless

working of that Absolute Spirit as a creative, conservative and

destructive principle, represented respectively by the divine

personalities of Brahma (masc.), Vishnu and Siva, forming the _Trimurti_

or Triad. As regards this latter, purely exoteric, doctrine, there can

be little doubt of its owing its origin to considerations of theological

expediency, as being calculated to supply a sufficiently wide formula of

belief for general acceptance; and the very fact of this divine triad

including the two principal deities of the later sectarian worship,

Vishnu and Siva, goes far to show that these two gods at all events must

have been already in those early days favourite objects of popular

adoration to an extent sufficient to preclude their being ignored by a

diplomatic priesthood bent upon the formulation of a common creed. Thus,

so far from sectarianism being a mere modern development of Brahmanism,

it actually goes back to beyond the formulation of the Brahmanical

creed. Nay, when, on analysing the functions and attributes of those two

divine figures, each of them is found to be but a compound of several

previously recognized deities, sectarian worship may well be traced

right up to the Vedic age. That the theory of the triple manifestation

of the deity was indeed only a compromise between Brahmanical

aspirations and popular worship, probably largely influenced by the

traditional sanctity of the number three, is sufficiently clear from the

fact that, whilst Brahma, the creator, and at the same time the very

embodiment of Brahmanical class pride, has practically remained a mere

figurehead in the actual worship of the people, Siva, on the other hand,

so far from being merely the destroyer, is also the unmistakable

representative of generative and reproductive power in nature. In fact,

Brahma, having performed his legitimate part in the mundane evolution by

his original creation of the universe, has retired into the background,

being, as it were, looked upon as _functus officio_, like a venerable

figure of a former generation, whence in epic poetry he is commonly

styled _pitamaha_, "the grandsire." But despite the artificial character

of the _Trimurti_, it has retained to this day at least its theoretical

validity in orthodox Hinduism, whilst it has also undoubtedly exercised

considerable influence in shaping sectarian belief, in promoting

feelings of toleration towards the claims of rival deities; and in a

tendency towards identifying divine figures newly sprung into popular

favour with one or other of the principal deities, and thus helping to

bring into vogue that notion of avatars, or periodical descents or

incarnations of the deity, which has become so prominent a feature of

the later sectarian belief.

Under more favourable political conditions,[1] the sacerdotal class

might perhaps, in course of time, have succeeded in imposing something

like an effective common creed on the heterogeneous medley of races and

tribes scattered over the peninsula, just as they certainly did succeed

in establishing the social prerogative of their own order over the

length and breadth of India. They were, however, fated to fall far short

of such a consummation; and at all times orthodox Brahmanism has had to

wink at, or ignore, all manner of gross superstitions and repulsive

practices, along with the popular worship of countless hosts of

godlings, demons, spirits and ghosts, and mystic objects and symbols of

every description. Indeed, according to a recent account by a close

observer of the religious practices prevalent in southern India, fully

four-fifths of the people of the Dravidian race, whilst nominally

acknowledging the spiritual guidance of the Brahmans, are to this day

practically given over to the worship of their nondescript local village

deities (_grama-devata_), usually attended by animal sacrifices

frequently involving the slaughter, under revolting circumstances, of

thousands of victims. Curiously enough these local deities are nearly

all of the female, not the male sex. In the estimation of these people

"Siva and Vishnu may be more dignified beings, but the village deity is

regarded as a more present help in trouble, and more intimately

concerned with the happiness and prosperity of the villagers. The origin

of this form of Hinduism is lost in antiquity, but it is probable that

it represents a pre-Aryan religion, more or less modified in various

parts of south India by Brahmanical influence. At the same time, many of

the deities themselves are of quite recent origin, and it is easy to

observe a deity in making even at the present day."[2] It is a

significant fact that, whilst in the worship of Siva and Vishnu, at

which no animal sacrifices are offered, the officiating priests are

almost invariably Brahmans, this is practically never the case at the

popular performance of those "gloomy and weird rites for the

propitiation of angry deities, or the driving away of evil spirits, when

the pujaris (or ministrants) are drawn from all other castes, even from

the Pariahs, the out-caste section of Indian society."

Caste.

As from the point of view of religious belief, so also from that of

social organization no clear line of demarcation can be drawn between

Brahmanism and Hinduism. Though it was not till later times that the

network of class divisions and subdivisions attained anything like the

degree of intricacy which it shows in these latter days, still in its

origin the caste-system is undoubtedly coincident with the rise of

Brahmanism, and may even be said to be of the very essence of it.[3] The

cardinal principle which underlies the system of caste is the

preservation of purity of descent, and purity of religious belief and

ceremonial usage. Now, that same principle had been operative from the

very dawn of the history of Aryanized India. The social organism of the

Aryan tribe did not probably differ essentially from that of most

communities at that primitive stage of civilization; whilst the body of

the people--the _Vis_ (or aggregate of _Vaisyas_)--would be mainly

occupied with agricultural and pastoral pursuits, two professional

classes--those of the warrior and the priest--had already made good

their claim to social distinction. As yet, however, the tribal community

would still feel one in race and traditional usage. But when the

fair-coloured Aryan immigrants first came in contact with, and drove

back or subdued the dark-skinned race that occupied the northern

plains--doubtless the ancestors of the modern Dravidian people--the

preservation of their racial type and traditionary order of things would

naturally become to them a matter of serious concern. In the extreme

north-western districts--the Punjab and Rajputana, judging from the

fairly uniform physical features of the present population of these

parts--they seem to have been signally successful in their endeavour to

preserve their racial purity, probably by being able to clear a

sufficiently extensive area of the original occupants for themselves

with their wives and children to settle upon. The case was, however,

very different in the adjoining valley of the Jumna and Ganges, the

sacred _Madhyadesa_ or Middle-land of classical India. Here the Aryan

immigrants were not allowed to establish themselves without undergoing a

considerable admixture of foreign blood. It must remain uncertain

whether it was that the thickly-populated character of the land scarcely

admitted of complete occupation, but only of a conquest by an army of

fighting men, starting from the Aryanized region--who might, however,

subsequently draw women of their own kin after them--or whether, as has

been suggested, a second Aryan invasion of India took place at that time

through the mountainous tracts of the upper Indus and northern Kashmir,

where the nature of the road would render it impracticable for the

invading bands to be accompanied by women and children. Be this as it

may, the physical appearance of the population of this central region of

northern India--Hindustan and Behar--clearly points to an intermixture

of the tall, fair-coloured, fine-nosed Aryan with the short-sized,

dark-skinned, broad-nosed Dravidian; the latter type becoming more

pronounced towards the lower strata of the social order.[4] Now, it was

precisely in this part of India that mainly arose the body of literature

which records the gradual rise of the Brahmanical hierarchy and the

early development of the caste-system.

The problem that now lay before the successful invaders was how to deal

with the indigenous people, probably vastly outnumbering them, without

losing their own racial identity. They dealt with them in the way the

white race usually deals with the coloured race--they kept them socially

apart. The land being appropriated by the conquerors, husbandry, as the

most respectable industrial occupation, became the legitimate calling of

the Aryan settler, the _Vaisya_; whilst handicrafts, gradually

multiplying with advancing civilization and menial service, were

assigned to the subject race. The generic name applied to the latter was

_Sudra_, originally probably the name of one of the subjected tribes. So

far the social development proceeded on lines hardly differing from

those with which one is familiar in the history of other nations. The

Indo-Aryans, however, went a step farther. What they did was not only to

keep the native race apart from social intercourse with themselves, but

to shut them out from all participation in their own higher aims, and

especially in their own religious convictions and ceremonial practices.

So far from attempting to raise their standard of spiritual life, or

even leaving it to ordinary intercourse to gradually bring about a

certain community of intellectual culture and religious sentiment, they

deliberately set up artificial barriers in order to prevent their own

traditional modes of worship from being contaminated with the obnoxious

practices of the servile race. The serf, the _Sudra_, was not to worship

the gods of the Aryan freemen. The result was the system of four castes

(_varna_, i.e. "colour"; or _jati_, "gens"). Though the Brahman, who by

this time had firmly secured his supremacy over the _kshatriya_, or

noble, in matters spiritual as well as in legislative and administrative

functions, would naturally be the prime mover in this regulation of the

social order, there seems no reason to believe that the other two upper

classes were not equally interested in seeing their hereditary

privileges thus perpetuated by divine sanction. Nothing, indeed, is more

remarkable in the whole development of the caste-system than the jealous

pride which every caste, from the highest to the lowest, takes in its

own peculiar occupation and sphere of life. The distinctive badge of a

member of the three upper castes was the sacred triple cord or thread

(_sutra_)--made of cotton, hemp or wool, according to the respective

caste--with which he was invested at the _upanayana_ ceremony, or

initiation into the use of the sacred _savitri_, or prayer to the sun

(also called _gayatri_), constituting his second birth. Whilst the Arya

was thus a _dvi-ja_, or twice-born, the Sudra remained unregenerate

during his lifetime, his consolation being the hope that, on the

faithful performance of his duties in this life, he might hereafter be

born again into a higher grade of life. In later times, the strict

adherence to caste duties would naturally receive considerable support

from the belief in the transmigration of souls, already prevalent before

Buddha's time, and from the very general acceptance of the doctrine of

_karma_ ("deed"), or retribution, according to which a man's present

station and manner of life are the result of the sum-total of his

actions and thoughts in his former existence; as his actions here will

again, by the same automatic process of retribution, determine his

status and condition in his next existence. Though this doctrine is

especially insisted upon in Buddhism, and its designation as a specific

term (Pali, _Kamma_) may be due to that creed, the notion itself was

doubtless already prevalent in pre-Buddhist times. It would even seem to

be necessarily and naturally implied in Brahmanical belief in

metempsychosis; whilst in the doctrine of Buddha, who admits no soul,

the theory of the net result or fruit of a man's actions serving

hereafter to form or condition the existence of some new individual who

will have no conscious identity with himself, seems of a peculiarly

artificial and mystic character. But, be this as it may, "the doctrine

of _karma_ is certainly one of the firmest beliefs of all classes of

Hindus, and the fear that a man shall reap as he has sown is an

appreciable element in the average morality ... the idea of forgiveness

is absolutely wanting; evil done may indeed be outweighed by meritorious

deeds so far as to ensure a better existence in the future, but it is

not effaced, and must be atoned for" (_Census Report_, i. 364).

In spite, however, of the artificial restrictions placed on the

intermarrying of the castes, the mingling of the two races seems to have

proceeded at a tolerably rapid rate. Indeed, the paucity of women of the

Aryan stock would probably render these mixed unions almost a necessity

from the very outset; and the vaunted purity of blood which the caste

rules were calculated to perpetuate can scarcely have remained of more

than a relative degree even in the case of the Brahman caste. Certain it

is that mixed castes are found referred to at a comparatively early

period; and at the time of Buddha--some five or six centuries before the

Christian era--the social organization would seem to have presented an

appearance not so very unlike that of modern times. It must be

confessed, however, that our information regarding the development of

the caste-system is far from complete, especially in its earlier stages.

Thus, we are almost entirely left to conjecture on the important point

as to the original social organization of the subject race. Though

doubtless divided into different tribes scattered over an extensive

tract of land, the subjected aborigines were slumped together under the

designation of Sudras, whose duty it was to serve the upper classes in

all the various departments of manual labour, save those of a downright

sordid and degrading character which it was left to _vratyas_ or

outcasts to perform. How, then, was the distribution of crafts and

habitual occupations of all kinds brought about? Was the process one of

spontaneous growth adapting an already existing social organization to a

new order of things; or was it originated and perpetuated by regulation

from above? Or was it rather that the status and duties of existing

offices and trades came to be determined and made hereditary by some

such artificial system as that by which the Theodosian Code succeeded

for a time in organizing the Roman society in the 5th century of our

era? "It is well known" (says Professor Dill) "that the tendency of the

later Empire was to stereotype society, by compelling men to follow the

occupation of their fathers, and preventing a free circulation among

different callings and grades of life. The man who brought the grain

from Africa to the public stores at Ostia, the baker who made it into

loaves for distribution, the butchers who brought pigs from Samnium,

Lucania or Bruttium, the purveyors of wine and oil, the men who fed the

furnaces of the public baths, were bound to their callings from one

generation to another. It was the principle of rural serfdom applied to

social functions. Every avenue of escape was closed. A man was bound to

his calling not only by his father's but also by his mother's condition.

Men were not permitted to marry out of their gild. If the daughter of

one of the baker caste married a man not belonging to it, her husband

was bound to her father's calling. Not even a dispensation obtained by

some means from the imperial chancery, not even the power of the Church

could avail to break the chain of servitude." It can hardly be gainsaid

that these artificial arrangements bear a very striking analogy to those

of the Indian caste-system; and if these class restrictions were

comparatively short-lived on Italian ground, it was not perhaps so much

that so strange a plant found there an ethnic soil less congenial to its

permanent growth, but because it was not allowed sufficient time to

become firmly rooted; for already great political events were impending

which within a few decades were to lay the mighty empire in ruins. In

India, on the other hand, the institution of caste--even if artificially

contrived and imposed by the Indo-Aryan priest and ruler--had at least

ample time allowed it to become firmly established in the social habits,

and even in the affections, of the people. At the same time, one could

more easily understand how such a system could have found general

acceptance all over the Dravidian region of southern India, with its

merest sprinkling of Aryan blood, if it were possible to assume that

class arrangements of a similar kind must have already been prevalent

amongst the aboriginal tribes prior to the advent of the Aryan. Whether

a more intimate acquaintance with the manners and customs of those rude

tribes that have hitherto kept themselves comparatively free from Hindu

influences may yet throw some light on this question, remains to be

seen. But, by this as it may, the institution of caste, when once

established, certainly appears to have gone on steadily developing; and

not even the long period of Buddhist ascendancy, with its uncompromising

resistance to the Brahman's claim to being the sole arbiter in matters

of faith, seems to have had any very appreciable retardant effect upon

the progress of the movement. It was not only by the formation of ever

new endogamous castes and sub-castes that the system gained in extent

and intricacy, but even more so by the constant subdivision of the

castes into numerous exogamous groups or septs, themselves often

involving gradations of social status important enough to seriously

affect the possibility of intermarriage, already hampered by various

other restrictions. Thus a man wishing to marry his son or daughter had

to look for a suitable match outside his sept, but within his caste. But

whilst for his son he might choose a wife from a lower sept than his

own, for his daughter, on the other hand, the law of hypergamy compelled

him, if at all possible, to find a husband in a higher sept. This would

naturally lead to an excess of women over men in the higher septs, and

would render it difficult for a man to get his daughter respectably

married without paying a high price for a suitable bridegroom and

incurring other heavy marriage expenses. It can hardly be doubted that

this custom has been largely responsible for the crime of female

infanticide, formerly so prevalent in India; as it also probably is to

some extent for infant marriages, still too common in some parts of

India, especially Bengal; and even for the all but universal repugnance

to the re-marriage of widows, even when these had been married in early

childhood and had never joined their husbands. Yet violations of these

rules are jealously watched by the other members of the sept, and are

liable--in accordance with the general custom in which communal matters

are regulated in India--to be brought before a special council

(_panchayat_), originally consisting of five (_pancha_), but now no

longer limited to that number, since it is chiefly the greater or less

strictness in the observance of caste rules and the orthodox ceremonial

generally that determine the status of the sept in the social scale of

the caste. Whilst community of occupation was an important factor in the

original formation of non-tribal castes, the practical exigencies of

life have led to considerable laxity in this respect--not least so in

the case of Brahmans who have often had to take to callings which would

seem altogether incompatible with the proper spiritual functions of

their caste. Thus, "the prejudice against eating cooked food that has

been touched by a man of an inferior caste is so strong that, although

the Shastras do not prohibit the eating of food cooked by a Kshatriya or

Vaisya, yet the Brahmans, in most parts of the country, would not eat

such food. For these reasons, every Hindu household--whether Brahman,

Kshatriya or Sudra--that can afford to keep a paid cook generally

entertains the services of a Brahman for the performance of its

_cuisine_--the result being that in the larger towns the very name of

Brahman has suffered a strange degradation of late, so as to mean only a

cook" (Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya, _Hindu Castes and Sects_). In this

caste, however, as in all others, there are certain kinds of occupation

to which a member could not turn for a livelihood without incurring

serious defilement. In fact, adherence to the traditional ceremonial and

respectability of occupation go very much hand-in-hand. Thus, amongst

agricultural castes, those engaged in vegetable-growing or

market-gardening are inferior to the genuine peasant or yeoman, such as

the Jat and Rajput; whilst of these the Jat who practises widow-marriage

ranks below the Rajput who prides himself on his tradition of ceremonial

orthodoxy--though racially there seems little, if any, difference

between the two; and the Rajput, again, is looked down upon by the

Babhan of Behar because he does not, like himself, scruple to handle the

plough, instead of invariably employing low-caste men for this manual

labour. So also when members of the Baidya, or physician, caste of

Bengal, ranging next to that of the Brahman, farm land on tenure, "they

will on no account hold the plough, or engage in any form of manual

labour, and thus necessarily carry on their cultivation by means of

hired servants" (H. H. Risley, _Census Report_).

The scale of social precedence as recognized by native public opinion

is concisely reviewed (ib.) as revealing itself "in the facts that

particular castes are supposed to be modern representatives of one or

other of the original castes of the theoretical Hindu system; that

Brahmans will take water from certain castes; that Brahmans of high

standing will serve particular castes; that certain castes, though not

served by the best Brahmans, have nevertheless got Brahmans of their

own whose rank varies according to circumstances; that certain castes

are not served by Brahmans at all but have priests of their own; that

the status of certain castes has been raised by their taking to

infant-marriage or abandoning the re-marriage of widows; that the

status of others has been modified by their pursuing some occupations

in a special or peculiar way; that some can claim the services of the

village barber, the village palanquin-bearer, the village midwife,

&c., while others cannot; that some castes may not enter the

courtyards of certain temples; that some castes are subject to special

taboos, such as that they must not use the village well, or may draw

water only with their own vessels, that they must live outside the

village or in a separate quarter, that they must leave the road on the

approach of a high-caste man and must call out to give warning of

their approach." ... "The first point to observe is the predominance

throughout India of the influence of the traditional system of four

original castes. In every scheme of grouping the Brahman heads the

list. Then come the castes whom popular opinion accepts as the modern

representatives of the Kshatriyas; and these are followed by the

mercantile groups supposed to be akin to the Vaisyas. When we leave

the higher circles of the twice-born, the difficulty of finding a

uniform basis of classification becomes apparent. The ancient

designation Sudra finds no great favour in modern times, and we can

point to no group that is generally recognized as representing it. The

term is used in Bombay, Madras and Bengal to denote a considerable

number of castes of moderate respectability, the higher of whom are

considered 'clean' Sudras, while the precise status of the lower is a

question which lends itself to endless controversy." ... In northern

and north-western India, on the other hand, "the grade next below the

twice-born rank is occupied by a number of castes from whose hands

Brahmans and members of the higher castes will take water and certain

kinds of sweetmeats. Below these again is rather an indeterminate

group from whom water is taken by some of the higher castes, not by

others. Further down, where the test of water no longer applies, the

status of the caste depends on the nature of its occupation and its

habits in respect of diet. There are castes whose touch defiles the

twice-born, but who do not commit the crowning enormity of eating

beef.... In western and southern India the idea that the social state

of a caste depends on whether Brahmans will take water and sweetmeats

from its members is unknown, for the higher castes will as a rule take

water only from persons of their own caste and sub-caste. In Madras

especially the idea of ceremonial pollution by the proximity of an

unclean caste has been developed with much elaboration. Thus the table

of social precedence attached to the Cochin report shows that while a

Nayar can pollute a man of a higher caste only by touching him, people

of the Kammalan group, including masons, blacksmiths, carpenters and

workers in leather, pollute at a distance of 24 ft., toddy-drawers at

36 ft., Pulayan or Cheruman cultivators at 48 ft., while in the case

of the Paraiyan (Pariahs) who eat beef the range of pollution is no

less than 64 ft."

In this bewildering maze of social grades and class distinctions, the

Brahman, as will have been seen, continues to hold the dominant

position, being respected and even worshipped by all the others. "The

more orthodox Sudras carry their veneration for the priestly class to

such a degree that they will not cross the shadow of a Brahman, and it

is not unusual for them to be under a vow not to eat any food in the

morning, before drinking _Bipracharanamrita_, i.e. water in which the

toe of a Brahman has been dipped. On the other hand, the pride of the

Brahmans is such that they do not bow to even the images of the gods

worshipped in a Sudra's house by Brahman priests" (Jog. Nath Bh.). There

are, however, not a few classes of Brahmans who, for various reasons,

have become degraded from their high station, and formed separate castes

with whom respectable Brahmans refuse to intermarry and consort. Chief

amongst these are the Brahmans who minister for "unclean" Sudras and

lower castes, including the makers and dealers in spirituous liquors; as

well as those who officiate at the great public shrines or places of

pilgrimage where they might be liable to accept forbidden gifts, and, as

a matter of fact, often amass considerable wealth; and those who

officiate as paid priests at cremations and funeral rites, when the

wearing apparel and bedding of the deceased are not unfrequently claimed

by them as their perquisites.

As regards the other two "twice-born" castes, several modern groups do

indeed claim to be their direct descendants, and in vindication of their

title make it a point to perform the _upanayana_ ceremony and to wear

the sacred thread. But though the Brahmans, too, will often acquiesce in

the reasonableness of such claims, it is probably only as a matter of

policy that they do so, whilst in reality they regard the other two

higher castes as having long since disappeared and been merged by

miscegenation in the Sudra mass. Hence, in the later classical Sanskrit

literature, the term _dvija_, or twice-born, is used simply as a synonym

for a Brahman. As regards the numerous groups included under the term of

Sudras, the distinction between "clean" and "unclean" Sudras is of

especial importance for the upper classes, inasmuch as only the

former--of whom nine distinct castes are usually recognized--are as a

rule considered fit for employment in household service.

Theology.

The picture thus presented by Hindu society--as made up of a confused

congeries of social groups of the most varied standing, each held

together and kept separate from others by a traditional body of

ceremonial rules and by the notion of social gradations being due to a

divinely instituted order of things--finds something like a counterpart

in the religious life of the people. As in the social sphere, so also in

the sphere of religious belief, we find the whole scale of types

represented from the lowest to the highest; and here as there, we meet

with the same failure of welding the confused mass into a well-ordered

whole. In their theory of a triple manifestation of an impersonal deity,

the Brahmanical theologians, as we have seen, had indeed elaborated a

doctrine which might have seemed to form a reasonable, authoritative

creed for a community already strongly imbued with pantheistic notions;

yet, at best, that creed could only appeal to the sympathies of a

comparatively limited portion of the people. Indeed, the sacerdotal

class themselves had made its universal acceptance an impossibility,

seeing that their laws, by which the relations of the classes were to be

regulated, aimed at permanently excluding the entire body of aboriginal

tribes from the religious life of their Aryan masters. They were to be

left for all time coming to their own traditional idolatrous notions and

practices. However, the two races could not, in the nature of things, be

permanently kept separate from each other. Indeed, even prior to the

definite establishment of the caste-system, the mingling of the lower

race with the upper classes, especially with the aristocratic landowners

and still more so with the yeomanry, had probably been going on to such

an extent as to have resulted in two fairly well-defined intermediate

types of colour between the priestly order and the servile race and to

have facilitated the ultimate division into four "colours" (_varna_). In

course of time the process of intermingling, as we have seen, assumed

such proportions that the priestly class, in their pride of blood, felt

naturally tempted to recognize, as of old, only two "colours," the Aryan

Brahman and the non-Aryan Sudra. Under these conditions the religious

practices of the lower race could hardly have failed in the long run to

tell seriously upon the spiritual life of the lay body of the

Brahmanical community. To what extent this may have been the case, our

limited knowledge of the early phases of the sectarian worship of the

people does not enable us to determine. But, on the other hand, the same

process of racial intermixture also tended to gradually draw the lower

race more or less under the influence of the Brahmanical forms of

worship, and thus contributed towards the shaping of the religious

system of modern Hinduism. The grossly idolatrous practices, however,

still so largely prevalent in the Dravidian South, show how superficial,

after all, that influence has been in those parts of India where the

admixture of Aryan blood has been so slight as to have practically had

no effect on the racial characteristics of the people. These present-day

practices, and the attitude of the Brahman towards them, help at all

events to explain the aversion with which the strange rites of the

subjected tribes were looked upon by the worshippers of the Vedic

pantheon. At the same time, in judging the apparently inhuman way in

which the Sudras were treated in the caste rules, one has always to bear

in mind the fact that the belief in metempsychosis was already universal

at the time, and seemed to afford the only rational explanation of the

apparent injustice involved in the unequal distribution of the good

things in this world; and that, if the Sudra was strictly excluded from

the religious rites and beliefs of the superior classes, this exclusion

in no way involved the question of his ultimate emancipation and his

union with the Infinite Spirit, which were as certain in his case as in

that of any other sentient being. What it did make impossible for him

was to attain that union immediately on the cessation of his present

life, as he would first have to pass through higher and purer stages of

mundane existence before reaching that goal; but in this respect he only

shared the lot of all but a very few of the saintliest in the higher

spheres of life, since the ordinary twice-born would be liable to sink,

after his present life, to grades yet lower than that of the Sudra.

To what extent the changes, which the religious belief of the Aryan

classes underwent in post-Vedic times, may have been due to aboriginal

influences is a question not easily answered, though the later creeds

offer only too many features in which one might feel inclined to suspect

influences of that kind. The literary documents, both in Sanskrit and

Pali, dating from about the time of Buddha onwards--particularly the two

epic poems, the _Mahabharata_ and _Ramayana_--still show us in the main

the _personnel_ of the old pantheon; but the character of the gods has

changed; they have become anthropomorphized and almost purely

mythological figures. A number of the chief gods, sometimes four, but

generally eight of them, now appear as _lokapalas_ or world-guardians,

having definite quarters or intermediate quarters of the compass

assigned to them as their special domains. One of them, Kubera, the god

of wealth, is a new figure; whilst another, Varuna, the most spiritual

and ethical of Vedic deities--the king of the gods and the universe; the

nightly, star-spangled firmament--has become the Indian Neptune, the god

of waters. Indra, their chief, is virtually a kind of superior raja,

residing in _svarga_, and as such is on visiting terms with earthly

kings, driving about in mid-air with his charioteer Matali. As might

happen to any earth-lord, Indra is actually defeated in battle by the

son of the demon-king of Lanka (Ceylon), and kept there a prisoner till

ransomed by Brahma and the gods conferring immortality on his conqueror.

A quaint figure in the pantheon of the heroic age is Hanuman, the

deified chief of monkeys--probably meant to represent the aboriginal

tribes of southern India--whose wonderful exploits as Rama's ally on the

expedition to Lanka Indian audiences will never weary of hearing

recounted. The Gandharvas figure already in the Veda, either as a single

divinity, or as a class of genii, conceived of as the body-guard of Soma

and as connected with the moon. In the later Vedic times they are

represented as being fond of, and dangerous to, women; the Apsaras,

apparently originally water-nymphs, being closely associated with them.

In the heroic age the Gandharvas have become the heavenly minstrels

plying their art at Indra's court, with the Apsaras as their wives or

mistresses. These fair damsels play, however, yet another part, and one

far from complimentary to the dignity of the gods. In the epics

considerable merit is attached to a life of seclusion and ascetic

practices by means of which man is considered capable of acquiring

supernatural powers equal or even superior to those of the gods--a

notion perhaps not unnaturally springing from the pantheistic

conception. Now, in cases of danger being threatened to their own

ascendancy by such practices, the gods as a rule proceed to employ the

usually successful expedient of despatching some lovely nymph to lure

the saintly men back to worldly pleasures. Seeing that the epic poems,

as repeated by professional reciters, either in their original Sanskrit

text, or in their vernacular versions, as well as dramatic compositions

based on them, form to this day the chief source of intellectual

enjoyment for most Hindus, the legendary matter contained in these

heroic poems, however marvellous and incredible it may appear, still

enters largely into the religious convictions of the people. "These

popular recitals from the Ramayan are done into Gujarati in easy,

flowing narrative verse ... by Premanand, the sweetest of our bards.

They are read out by an intelligent Brahman to a mixed audience of all

classes and both sexes. It has a perceptible influence on the Hindu

character. I believe the remarkable freedom from infidelity which is to

be seen in most Hindu families, in spite of their strange gregarious

habits, can be traced to that influence; and little wonder" (B. M.

Malabari, _Gujarat and the Gujaratis_). Hence also the universal

reverence paid to serpents (_naga_) since those early days; though

whether it simply arose from the superstitious dread inspired by the

insidious reptile so fatal to man in India, or whether the verbal

coincidence with the name of the once-powerful non-Aryan tribe of Nagas

had something to do with it must remain doubtful. Indian myth represents

them as a race of demons sprung from Kadru, the wife of the sage

Kasyapa, with a jewel in their heads which gives them their sparkling

look; and inhabiting one of the seven beautiful worlds below the earth

(and above the hells), where they are ruled over by three chiefs or

kings, Sesha, Vasuki and Takshaka; their fair daughters often entering

into matrimonial alliances with men, like the mermaids of western

legend.

In addition to such essentially mythological conceptions, we meet in the

religious life of this period with an element of more serious aspect in

the two gods, on one or other of whom the religious fervour of the large

majority of Hindus has ever since concentrated itself, viz. Vishnu and

Siva. Both these divine figures have grown out of Vedic conceptions--the

genial Vishnu mainly out of a not very prominent solar deity of the same

name; whilst the stern Siva, i.e. the kind or gracious one--doubtless a

euphemistic name--has his prototype in the old fierce storm-god Rudra,

the "Roarer," with certain additional features derived from other

deities, especially Pushan, the guardian of flocks and bestower of

prosperity, worked up therewith. The exact process of the evolution of

the two deities and their advance in popular favour are still somewhat

obscure. In the epic poems which may be assumed to have taken their

final shape in the early centuries before and after the Christian era,

their popular character, so strikingly illustrated by their inclusion in

the Brahmanical triad, appears in full force; whilst their cult is

likewise attested by the coins and inscriptions of the early centuries

of our era. The co-ordination of the two gods in the Trimurti does not

by any means exclude a certain rivalry between them; but, on the

contrary, a supreme position as the true embodiment of the Divine Spirit

is claimed for each of them by their respective votaries, without,

however, an honourable, if subordinate, place being refused to the rival

deity, wherever the latter, as is not infrequently the case, is not

actually represented as merely another form of the favoured god. Whilst

at times a truly monotheistic fervour manifests itself in the adoration

of these two gods, the polytheistic instincts of the people did not fail

to extend the pantheon by groups of new deities in connexion with them.

Two of such new gods actually pass as the sons of Siva and his consort

Parvati, viz. Skanda--also called Kumara (the youth), Karttikeya, or

Subrahmanya (in the south)--the six-headed war-lord of the gods; and

Ganese, the lord (or leader) of Siva's troupes of attendants, being at

the same time the elephant-headed, paunch-bellied god of wisdom; whilst

a third, Kama (Kamadeva) or Kandarpa, the god of love, gets his popular

epithet of Ananga, "the bodiless," from his having once, in frolicsome

play, tried the power of his arrows upon Siva, whilst engaged in austere

practices, when a single glance from the third (forehead) eye of the

angry god reduced the mischievous urchin to ashes. For his chief

attendant, the great god (Mahadeva, Mahesvara) has already with him the

"holy" Nandi--presumably, though his shape is not specified, identical

in form as in name with Siva's sacred bull of later times, the

appropriate symbol of the god's reproductive power. But, in this

respect, we also meet in the epics with the first clear evidence of what

in after time became the prominent feature of the worship of Siva and

his consort all over India, viz. the feature represented by the _linga_,

or phallic symbol.

As regards Vishnu, the epic poems, including the supplement to the

Mahabharata, the Harivamsa, supply practically the entire framework of

legendary matter on which the later Vaishnava creeds are based. The

theory of Avataras which makes the deity--also variously called

Narayana, Purushottama, or Vasudeva--periodically assume some material

form in order to rescue the world from some great calamity, is fully

developed; the ten universally recognized "descents" being enumerated in

the larger poem. Though Siva, too, assumes various forms, the

incarnation theory is peculiarly characteristic of Vaishnavism; and the

fact that the principal hero of the Ramayana (Rama), and one of the

prominent warriors of the Mahabharata (Krishna) become in this way

identified with the supreme god, and remain to this day the chief

objects of the adoration of Vaishnava sectaries, naturally imparts to

these creeds a human interest and sympathetic aspect which is wholly

wanting in the worship of Siva. It is, however, unfortunately but too

true that in some of these creeds the devotional ardour has developed

features of a highly objectionable character.

Even granting the reasonableness of the triple manifestation of the

Divine Spirit, how is one to reconcile all these idolatrous practices,

this worship of countless gods and godlings, demons and spirits

indwelling in every imaginable object round about us, with the

pantheistic doctrine of the _Ekam Advitiyam_, "the One without a

Second"? The Indian theosophist would doubtless have little difficulty

in answering that question. For him there is only the One Absolute

Being, the one reality that is all in all; whilst all the phenomenal

existences and occurrences that crowd upon our senses are nothing more

than an illusion of the individual soul estranged for a time from its

divine source--an illusion only to be dispelled in the end by the

soul's fuller knowledge of its own true nature and its being one with

the eternal fountain of blissful being. But to the man of ordinary

understanding, unused to the rarefied atmosphere of abstract thought,

this conception of a transcendental, impersonal Spirit and the

unreality of the phenomenal world can have no meaning: what he

requires is a deity that stands in intimate relation to things

material and to all that affects man's life. Hence the exoteric theory

of manifestations of the Supreme Spirit; and that not only the

manifestations implied in the triad of gods representing the cardinal

processes of mundane existence--creation, preservation, and

destruction or regeneration--but even such as would tend to supply a

rational explanation for superstitious imaginings of every kind. For

"the Indian philosophy does not ignore or hold aloof from the religion

of the masses: it underlies, supports and interprets their polytheism.

This may be accounted the keystone of the fabric of Brahmanism, which

accepts and even encourages the rudest forms of idolatry, explaining

everything by giving it a higher meaning. It treats all the worships

as outward, visible signs of some spiritual truth, and is ready to

show how each particular image or rite is the symbol of some aspect of

universal divinity. The Hindus, like the pagans of antiquity, adore

natural objects and forces--a mountain, a river or an animal. The

Brahman holds all nature to be the vesture or cloak of indwelling,

divine energy, which inspires everything that produces awe or passes

man's understanding" (Sir Alfred C. Lyall, _Brahminism_).

Sectarianism.

During the early centuries of our era, whilst Buddhism, where

countenanced by the political rulers, was still holding its own by the

side of Brahmanism, sectarian belief in the Hindu gods seems to have

made steady progress. The caste-system, always calculated to favour

unity of religious practice within its social groups, must naturally

have contributed to the advance of sectarianism. Even greater was the

support it received later on from the Puranas, a class of poetical works

of a partly legendary, partly discursive and controversial character,

mainly composed in the interest of special deities, of which eighteen

principal (_maha-purana_) and as many secondary ones (_upa-purana_) are

recognized, the oldest of which may go back to about the 4th century of

our era. It was probably also during this period that the female element

was first definitely admitted to a prominent place amongst the divine

objects of sectarian worship, in the shape of the wives of the principal

gods viewed as their _sakti_, or female energy, theoretically identified

with the _Maya_, or cosmic Illusion, of the idealistic Vedanta, and the

_Prakriti_, or plastic matter, of the materialistic Sankhya philosophy,

as the primary source of mundane things. The connubial relations of the

deities may thus be considered "to typify the mystical union of the two

eternal principles, spirit and matter, for the production and

reproduction of the universe." But whilst this privilege of divine

worship was claimed for the consorts of all the gods, it is principally

to Siva's consort, in one or other of her numerous forms, that adoration

on an extensive scale came to be offered by a special sect of votaries,

the _Saktas_.

Sankara.

In the midst of these conflicting tendencies, an attempt was made, about

the latter part of the 8th century, by the distinguished Malabar

theologian and philosopher Sankara Acharya to restore the Brahmanical

creed to something like its pristine purity, and thus once more to bring

about a uniform system of orthodox Hindu belief. Though himself, like

most Brahmans, apparently by predilection a follower of Siva, his aim

was the revival of the doctrine of the Brahma as the one self-existent

Being and the sole cause of the universe; coupled with the recognition

of the practical worship of the orthodox pantheon, especially the gods

of the Trimurti, as manifestations of the supreme deity. The practical

result of his labours was the foundation of a new sect, the _Smartas_,

i.e. adherents of the _smriti_ or tradition, which has a numerous

following amongst southern Brahmans, and, whilst professing Sankara's

doctrines, is usually classed as one of the Saiva sects, its members

adopting the horizontal sectarial mark peculiar to Saivas, consisting in

their case of a triple line, the _tripundra_, prepared from the ashes of

burnt cow-dung and painted on the forehead. Sankara also founded four

Maths, or convents, for Brahmans; the chief one being that of Sringeri

in Mysore, the spiritual head (_Guru_) of which wields considerable

power, even that of excommunication, over the Saivas of southern India.

In northern India, the professed followers of Sankara are mainly limited

to certain classes of mendicants and ascetics, although the tenets of

this great Vedanta teacher may be said virtually to constitute the creed

of intelligent Brahmans generally.

Whilst Sankara's chief title to fame rests on his philosophical works,

as the upholder of the strict monistic theory of Vedanta, he doubtless

played an important part in the partial remodelling of the Hindu

system of belief at a time when Buddhism was rapidly losing ground in

India. Not that there is any evidence of Buddhists ever having been

actually persecuted by the Brahmans, or still less of Sankara himself

ever having done so; but the traditional belief in some personal god,

as the principal representative of an invisible, all-pervading deity,

would doubtless appeal more directly to the minds and hearts of the

people than the colourless ethical system promulgated by the Sakya

saint. Nor do Buddhist places of worship appear as a rule to have been

destroyed by Hindu sectaries, but they seem rather to have been taken

over by them for their own religious uses; at any rate there are to

this day not a few Hindu shrines, especially in Bengal, dedicated to

Dharmaraj, "the prince of righteousness," as the Buddha is commonly

styled. That the tenets and practices of so characteristic a faith as

Buddhism, so long prevalent in India, cannot but have left their marks

on Hindu life and belief may readily be assumed, though it is not so

easy to lay one's finger on the precise features that might seem to

betray such an influence. If the general tenderness towards animals,

based on the principle of _ahimsa_, or inflicting no injury on

sentient beings, be due to Buddhist teaching, that influence must have

made itself felt at a comparatively early period, seeing that

sentiments of a similar nature are repeatedly urged in the Code of

Manu. Thus, in v. 46-48, "He who does not willingly cause the pain of

confinement and death to living beings, but desires the good of all,

obtains endless bliss. He who injures no creature obtains without

effort what he thinks of, what he strives for, and what he fixes his

mind on. Flesh-meat cannot be procured without injury to animals, and

the slaughter of animals is not conducive to heavenly bliss: from

flesh-meat, therefore, let man abstain." Moreover, in view of the fact

that Jainism, which originated about the same time as Buddhism,

inculcates the same principle, even to an extravagant degree, it seems

by no means improbable that the spirit of kindliness towards living

beings generally was already widely diffused among the people when

these new doctrines were promulgated. To the same tendency doubtless

is due the gradual decline and ultimate discontinuance of animal

sacrifices by all sects except the extreme branch of

Sakti-worshippers. In this respect, the veneration shown to serpents

and monkeys has, however, to be viewed in a somewhat different light,

as having a mythical background; whilst quite a special significance

attaches to the sacred character assigned to the cow by all classes of

Hindus, even those who are not prepared to admit the claim of the

Brahman to the exalted position of the earthly god usually conceded to

him. In the Veda no tendency shows itself as yet towards rendering

divine honour to the cow; and though the importance assigned her in an

agricultural community is easily understood, still the exact process

of her deification and her identification with the mother earth in the

time of Manu and the epics requires further elucidation. An idealized

type of the useful quadruped--likewise often identified with the

earth--presents itself in the mythical Cow of Plenty, or "wish-cow"

(Kamadhenu, or Kamadugha, i.e. wish-milker), already appearing in the

Atharvaveda, and in epic times assigned to Indra, or identified with

Surabhi, "the fragrant," the sacred cow of the sage Vasishtha.

Possibly the growth of the legend of Krishna--his being reared at

Gokula (cow-station); his tender relations to the _gopis_, or

cow-herdesses, of Vrindavana; his epithets _Gopala_, "the cowherd,"

and _Govinda_, "cow-finder," actually explained as "recoverer of the

earth" in the great epic, and the _go-loka_, or "cow-world," assigned

to him as his heavenly abode--may have some connexion with the sacred

character ascribed to the cow from early times.

Worship.

Since the time of Sankara, or for more than a thousand years, the gods

Vishnu and Siva, or _Hari_ and _Hara_ as they are also commonly

called--with their wives, especially that of the latter god--have shared

between them the practical worship of the vast majority of Hindus. But,

though the people have thus been divided between two different religious

camps, sectarian animosity has upon the whole kept within reasonable

limits. In fact, the respectable Hindu, whilst owning special allegiance

to one of the two gods as his _ishta devata_ (favourite deity), will not

withhold his tribute of adoration from the other gods of the pantheon.

The high-caste Brahman will probably keep at his home a salagram stone,

the favourite symbol of Vishnu, as well as the characteristic emblems of

Siva and his consort, to both of which he will do reverence in the

morning; and when he visits some holy place of pilgrimage, he will not

fail to pay his homage at both the Saiva and the Vaishnava shrines

there. Indeed, "sectarian bigotry and exclusiveness are to be found

chiefly among the professional leaders of the modern brotherhoods and

their low-caste followers, who are taught to believe that theirs are the

only true gods, and that the rest do not deserve any reverence whatever"

(Jog. Nath). The same spirit of toleration shows itself in the

celebration of the numerous religious festivals. Whilst some of

these--e.g. the _Sankranti_ (called _Pongal_, i.e. "boiled rice," in the

south), which marks the entrance of the sun into the sign of Capricorn

and the beginning of its northward course (_uttarayana_) on the 1st day

of the month Magha (c. Jan. 12); the _Ganesa-caturthi_, or 4th day of

the light fortnight of Bhadra (August-September), considered the

birthday of Ganesa, the god of wisdom; and the _Holi_, the Indian

Saturnalia in the month of Phalguna (February to March)--have nothing of

a sectarian tendency about them; others again, which are of a distinctly

sectarian character--such as the _Krishna-janmashtami_, the birthday of

Krishna on the 8th day of the dark half of Bhadra, or (in the south) of

Sravana (July-August), the _Durga-puja_ and the _Dipavali_, or lamp

feast, celebrating Krishna's victory over the demon Narakasura, on the

last two days of Asvina (September-October)--are likewise observed and

heartily joined in by the whole community irrespective of sect. Widely

different, however, as is the character of the two leading gods are also

the modes of worship practised by their votaries.

_Siva_ has at all times been the favourite god of the Brahmans,[5] and

his worship is accordingly more widely extended than that of his rival,

especially in southern India. Indeed there is hardly a village in India

which cannot boast of a shrine dedicated to Siva, and containing the

emblem of his reproductive power; for almost the only form in which the

"Great God" is adored is the _Linga_, consisting usually of an upright

cylindrical block of marble or other stone, mostly resting on a circular

perforated slab. The mystic nature of these emblems seems, however, to

be but little understood by the common people; and, as H. H. Wilson

remarks, "notwithstanding the acknowledged purport of this worship, it

is but justice to state that it is unattended in Upper India by any

indecent or indelicate ceremonies, and it requires a rather lively

imagination to trace any resemblance in its symbols to the objects they

are supposed to represent." In spite, however, of its wide diffusion,

and the vast number of shrines dedicated to it, the worship of Siva has

never assumed a really popular character, especially in northern India,

being attended with scarcely any solemnity or display of emotional

spirit. The temple, which usually stands in the middle of a court, is as

a rule a building of very moderate dimensions, consisting either of a

single square chamber, surmounted by a pyramidal structure, or of a

chamber for the linga and a small vestibule. The worshipper, having

first circumambulated the shrine as often as he pleases, keeping it at

his right-hand side, steps up to the threshold of the sanctum, and

presents his offering of flowers or fruit, which the officiating priest

receives; he then prostrates himself, or merely lifts his hands--joined

so as to leave a hollow space between the palms--to his forehead,

muttering a short prayer, and takes his departure. Amongst the many

thousands of Lingas, twelve are usually regarded as of especial

sanctity, one of which, that of Somnath in Gujarat, where Siva is

worshipped as "the lord of Soma," was, however, shattered by Mahmud of

Ghazni; whilst another, representing Siva as _Visvesvara_, or "Lord of

the Universe," is the chief object of adoration at Benares, the great

centre of Siva-worship. The Saivas of southern India, on the other hand,

single out as peculiarly sacred five of their temples which are supposed

to enshrine as many characteristic aspects (linga) of the god in the

form of the five elements, the most holy of these being the shrine of

Chidambaram (i.e. "thought-ether") in S. Arcot, supposed to contain the

ether-linga. According to Pandit S. M. Natesa (_Hindu Feasts, Fasts and

Ceremonies_), "the several forms of the god Siva in these sacred shrines

are considered to be the bodies or casements of the soul whose natural

bases are the five elements--earth, water, fire, air and ether. The

apprehension of God in the last of these five as ether is, according to

the Saiva school of philosophy, the highest form of worship, for it is

not the worship of God in a tangible form, but the worship of what, to

ordinary minds, is vacuum, which nevertheless leads to the attainment of

a knowledge of the all-pervading without physical accessories in the

shape of any linga, which is, after all, an emblem. That this is the

case at Chidambaram is known to every Hindu, for if he ever asks the

priests to show him the God in the temple he is pointed to an empty

space in the holy of holies, which has been termed the Akasa, or

ether-linga." But, however congenial this refined symbolism may be to

the worshipper of a speculative turn of mind, it is difficult to see how

it could ever satisfy the religious wants of the common man little given

to abstract conceptions of this kind.

Mendicant orders.

From early times, detachment from the world and the practice of

austerities have been regarded in India as peculiarly conducive to a

spirit of godliness, and ultimately to a state of ecstatic communion

with the deity. On these grounds it was actually laid down as a rule for

a man solicitous for his spiritual welfare to pass the last two of the

four stages (_asrama_) of his life in such conditions of renunciation

and self-restraint. Though there is hardly a sect which has not

contributed its share to the element of religious mendicancy and

asceticism so prevalent in India, it is in connexion with the Siva-cult

that these tendencies have been most extensively cultivated. Indeed, the

personality of the stern God himself exhibits this feature in a very

marked degree, whence the term _mahayogi_ or "great ascetic" is often

applied to him.

Of Saiva mendicant and ascetic orders, the members of which are

considered more or less followers of Sankara Acharya, the following

may be mentioned: (1) _Dandis_, or staff-bearers, who carry a wand

with a piece of red cloth, containing the sacred cord, attached to it,

and also wear one or more pieces of cloth of the same colour. They

worship Siva in his form of Bhairava, the "terrible." A sub-section of

this order are the Dandi Dasnamis, or Dandi of ten names, so called

from their assuming one of the names of Sankara's four disciples, and

six of their pupils. (2) _Yogis_ (or popularly, Jogis), i.e. adherents

of the Yoga philosophy and the system of ascetic practices enjoined by

it with the view of mental abstraction and the supposed attainment of

superhuman powers--practices which, when not merely pretended, but

rigidly carried out, are only too apt to produce vacuity of mind and

wild fits of frenzy. In these degenerate days their supernatural

powers consist chiefly in conjuring, sooth-saying, and feats of

jugglery, by which they seldom fail in imposing upon a credulous

public. (3) _Sannyasis_, devotees who "renounce" earthly concerns, an

order not confined either to the Brahmanical caste or to the Saiva

persuasion. Those of the latter are in the habit of smearing their

bodies with ashes, and wearing a tiger-skin and a necklace or rosary

of _rudraksha_ berries (Elaeocarpus Ganitrus, lit. "Rudra's eye"),

sacred to Siva, and allowing their hair to grow till it becomes matted

and filthy. (4) _Parama-hamsas_, i.e. "supreme geese (or swans)," a

term applied to the world-soul with which they claim to be identical.

This is the highest order of asceticism, members of which are supposed

to be solely engaged in meditating on the Brahma, and to be "equally

indifferent to pleasure or pain, insensible of heat or cold, and

incapable of satiety or want." Some of them go about naked, but the

majority are clad like the Dandis. (5) _Aghora Panthis_, a vile and

disreputable class of mendicants, now rarely met with. Their filthy

habits and disgusting practices of gross promiscuous feeding, even to

the extent of eating offal and dead men's flesh, look almost like a

direct repudiation of the strict Brahmanical code of ceremonial purity

and cleanliness, and of the rules regulating the matter and manner of

eating and drinking; and they certainly make them objects of loathing

and terror wherever they are seen.

On the general effect of the manner of life led by _Sadhus_ or "holy

men," a recent observer (J. C. Oman, _Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of

India_, p. 273) remarks: "_Sadhuism_, whether perpetuating the

peculiar idea of the efficiency of austerities for the acquisition of

far-reaching powers over natural phenomena, or bearing its testimony

to the belief in the indispensableness of detachment from the world as

a preparation for the ineffable joy of ecstatic communion with the

Divine Being, has undoubtedly tended to keep before men's eyes, as the

highest ideal, a life of purity, self-restraint, and contempt of the

world and human affairs. It has also necessarily maintained amongst

the laity a sense of the righteous claims of the poor upon the charity

of the more affluent members of the community. Moreover, _sadhuism_,

by the multiplicity of the independent sects which have arisen in

India, has engendered and favoured a spirit of tolerance which cannot

escape the notice of the most superficial observer."

Lingayats.

An independent Saiva sect, or, indeed, the only strictly Saiva sect, are

the _Vira Saivas_, more commonly called _Lingayats_ (popularly Lingaits)

or _Lingavats_, from their practice of wearing on their person a phallic

emblem of Siva, made of copper or silver, and usually enclosed in a case

suspended from the neck by a string. Apparently from the movable nature

of their badge, their _Gurus_ are called _Jangamas_ ("movable"). This

sect counts numerous adherents in southern India; the Census Report of

1901 recording nearly a million and a half, including some 70 or 80

different, mostly endogamous, castes. The reputed founder, or rather

reformer, of the sect was Basava (or Basaba), a Brahman of the Belgaum

district who seems to have lived in the 11th or 12th century. According

to the Basava-purana he early in life renounced his caste and went to

reside at Kalyana, then the capital of the Chalukya kingdom, and later

on at Sangamesvara near Ratnagiri, where he was initiated into the Vira

Saiva faith which he subsequently made it his life's work to propagate.

His doctrine, which may be said to constitute a kind of reaction against

the severe sacerdotalism of Sankara, has spread over all classes of the

southern community, most of the priests of Saiva temples there being

adherents of it; whilst in northern India its votaries are only

occasionally met with, and then mostly as mendicants, leading about a

neatly caparisoned bull as representing Siva's sacred bull _Nandi_.

Though the Lingayats still show a certain animosity towards the

Brahmans, and in the Census lists are accordingly classed as an

independent group beside the Hindus, still they can hardly be excluded

from the Hindu community, and are sure sooner or later to find their way

back to the Brahmanical fold.

Avatars.

Vishnu, whilst less popular with Brahmans than his rival, has from early

times proved to the lay mind a more attractive object of adoration on

account of the genial and, so to speak, romantic character of his

mythical personality. It is not, however, so much the original figure of

the god himself that enlists the sympathies of his adherents as the

additional elements it has received through the theory of periodical

"descents" (_avatara_) or incarnations applied to this deity. Whilst the

Saiva philosophers do not approve of the notion of incarnations, as

being derogatory to the dignity of the deity, the Brahmans have

nevertheless thought fit to adopt it as apparently a convenient

expedient for bringing certain tendencies of popular worship within the

pale of their system, and probably also for counteracting the Buddhist

doctrines; and for this purpose Vishnu would obviously offer himself as

the most attractive figure in the Brahmanical trinity. Whether the

incarnation theory started from the original solar nature of the god

suggestive of regular visits to the world of men, or in what other way

it may have originated, must remain doubtful. Certain, however, it is

that at least one of his Avatars is clearly based on the Vedic

conception of the sun-god, viz. that of the dwarf who claims as much

ground as he can cover by three steps, and then gains the whole universe

by his three mighty strides. Of the ten or more Avatars, assumed by

different authorities, only two have entered to any considerable extent

into the religious worship of the people, viz. those of _Rama_ (or

Ramachandra) and _Krishna_, the favourite heroes of epic romance. That

these two figures would appeal far more strongly to the hearts and

feelings of the people, especially the warlike Kshatriyas,[6] than the

austere Siva is only what might have been expected; and, indeed, since

the time of the epics their cult seems never to have lacked numerous

adherents. But, on the other hand, the essentially human nature of these

two gods would naturally tend to modify the character of the relations

between worshipper and worshipped, and to impart to the modes and forms

of adoration features of a more popular and more human kind. And

accordingly it is exactly in connexion with these two incarnations of

Vishnu, especially that of Krishna, that a new spirit was infused into

the religious life of the people by the sentiment of fervent devotion to

the deity, as it found expression in certain portions of the epic poems,

especially the _Bhagavadgita_, and in the _Bhagavata-purana_ (as against

the more orthodox Vaishnava works of this class such as the

Vishnu-purana), and was formulated into a regular doctrine of faith in

the _Sandilya-sutra_, and ultimately translated into practice by the

Vaishnava reformers.

Ramanujas.

The first successful Vaishnava reaction against Sankara's reconstructed

creed was led by Ramanuja, a southern Brahman of the 12th century. His

followers, the Ramanujas, or Sri-Vaishnavas as they are usually called,

worship Vishnu (Narayana) with his consort Sri or Lakshmi (the goddess

of beauty and fortune), or their incarnations Rama with Sita and Krishna

with Rukmini. Ramanuja's doctrine, which is especially directed against

the Linga-worship, is essentially based on the tenets of an old

Vaishnava sect, the Bhagavatas or Pancharatras, who worshipped the

Supreme Being under the name of Vasudeva (subsequently identified with

Krishna, as the son of Vasudeva, who indeed is credited by some scholars

with the foundation of that monotheistic creed). The sectarial mark of

the Ramanujas resembles a capital U (or, in the case of another

division, a Y), painted with a white clay called gopi-chandana, between

the hair and the root of the nose, with a red or yellow vertical stroke

(representing the female element) between the two white lines. They also

usually wear, like all Vaishnavas, a necklace of _tulasi_, or basil

wood, and a rosary of seeds of the same shrub or of the lotus. Their

most important shrines are those of Srirangam near Trichinopoly,

Mailkote in Mysore, Dvaraka (the city of Krishna) on the Kathiawar

coast, and Jagannath in Orissa; all of them decorated with Vishnu's

emblems, the tulasi plant and salagram stone. The Ramanuja Brahmans are

most punctilious in the preparation of their food and in regard to the

privacy of their meals, before taking which they have to bathe and put

on woollen or silk garments. Whilst Sankara's mendicant followers were

prohibited to touch fire and had to subsist entirely on the charity of

Brahman householders, Ramanuja, on the contrary, not only allowed his

followers to use fire, but strictly forbade their eating any food

cooked, or even seen, by a stranger. On the speculative side, Ramanuja

also met Sankara's strictly monistic theory by another recognizing

Vishnu as identical with Brahma as the Supreme Spirit animating the

material world as well as the individual souls which have become

estranged from God through unbelief, and can only attain again conscious

union with him through devotion or love (_bhakti_). His tenets are

expounded in various works, especially in his commentaries on the

Vedanta-sutras and the Bhagavadgita. The followers of Ramanuja have

split into two sects, a northern one, recognizing the Vedas as their

chief authority, and a southern one, basing their tenets on the Nalayir,

a Tamil work of the Upanishad order. In point of doctrine, they differ

in their view of the relation between God Vishnu and the human soul;

whilst the former sect define it by the _ape_ theory, which makes the

soul cling to God as the young ape does to its mother, the latter

explain it by the cat theory, by which Vishnu himself seizes and rescues

the souls as the mother cat does her young ones.

Madhvas.

_Madhva Acharya_, another distinguished Vedanta teacher and founder of a

Vaishnava sect, born in Kanara in A.D. 1199, was less intolerant of the

Linga cult than Ramanuja, but seems rather to have aimed at a

reconciliation of the Saiva and Vaishnava forms of worship. The

_Madhvas_ or _Madhvacharis_ favour Krishna and his consort as their

special objects of adoration, whilst images of Siva, Parvati, and their

son Ganesa are, however, likewise admitted and worshipped in some of

their temples, the most important of which is at Udipi in South Kanara,

with eight monasteries connected with it. This shrine contains an image

of Krishna which is said to have been rescued from the wreck of a ship

which brought it from Dvaraka, where it was supposed to have been set up

of old by no other than Krishna's friend Arjuna, one of the five Pandava

princes. Followers of the Madhva creed are but rarely met with in Upper

India. Their sectarial mark is like the U of the Sri-Vaishnavas, except

that their central line is black instead of red or yellow. Madhva--who

after his initiation assumed the name Anandatirtha--composed numerous

Sanskrit works, including commentaries on the Brahma sutras (i.e. the

Vedanta aphorisms), the Gita, the Rigveda and many Upanishads. His

philosophical theory was a dualistic one, postulating distinctness of

nature for the divine and the human soul, and hence independent

existence, instead of absorption, after the completion of mundane

existence.

Ramats.

The Ramanandis or Ramavats (popularly Ramats) are a numerous northern

sect of similar tenets to those of the Ramanujas. Indeed its founder,

Ramananda, who probably flourished in the latter part of the 14th

century, according to the traditional account, was originally a

Sri-Vaishnava monk, and, having come under the suspicion of laxity in

observing the strict rules of food during his peregrinations, and been

ordered by his superior (Mahant) to take his meals apart from his

brethren, left the monastery in a huff and set up a schismatic math of

his own at Benares. The sectarial mark of his sect differs but slightly

from that of the parent stock. The distinctive features of their creed

consist in their making Rama and Sita, either singly or conjointly, the

chief objects of their adoration, instead of Vishnu and Lakshmi, and

their attaching little or no importance to the observance of privacy in

the cooking and eating of their food. Their mendicant members, usually

known as Vairagis, are, like the general body of the sect, drawn from

all castes without distinction. Thus, the founder's twelve chief

disciples include, besides Brahmans, a weaver, a currier, a Rajput, a

Jat and a barber--for, they argue, seeing that Bhagavan, the Holy One

(Vishnu), became incarnate even in animal form, a Bhakta (believer) may

be born even in the lowest of castes. Ramananda's teaching was thus of a

distinctly levelling and popular character; and, in accordance

therewith, the Bhakta-mala and other authoritative writings of the sect

are composed, not in Sanskrit, but in the popular dialects. A follower

of this creed was the distinguished poet Tulsidas, the composer of the

beautiful Hindi version of the Ramayana and other works which "exercise

more influence upon the great body of Hindu population than the whole

voluminous series of Sanskrit composition" (H. H. Wilson).

Kabir.

The traditional list of Ramananda's immediate disciples includes the

name of Kabir, the weaver, a remarkable man who would accordingly have

lived in the latter part of the 15th century, and who is claimed by both

Hindus and Moslems as having been born within their fold. The story goes

that, having been deeply impressed by Ramananda's teaching, he sought to

attach himself to him; and, one day at Benares, in stepping down the

ghat at daybreak to bathe in the Ganges, and putting himself in the way

of the teacher, the latter, having inadvertently struck him with his

foot, uttered his customary exclamation "Ram Ram," which, being also the

initiatory formula of the sect, was claimed by Kabir as such, making him

Ramananda's disciple. Be this as it may, Kabir's own reformatory

activity lay in the direction of a compromise between the Hindu and the

Mahommedan creeds, the religious practices of both of which he

criticized with equal severity. His followers, the Kabir Panthis ("those

following Kabir's path"), though neither worshipping the gods of the

pantheon, nor observing the rites and ceremonial of the Hindus, are

nevertheless in close touch with the Vaishnava sects, especially the

Ramavats, and generally worship Rama as the supreme deity, when they do

not rather address their homage, in hymns and otherwise, to the founder

of their creed himself. Whilst very numerous, particularly amongst the

low-caste population, in western, central and northern India, resident

adherents of Kabir's doctrine are rare in Bengal and the south; although

"there is hardly a town in India where strolling beggars may not be

found singing songs of Kabir in the original or as translated into the

local dialects." The mendicants of this creed, however, never actually

solicit alms; and, indeed, "the quaker-like spirit of the sect, their

abhorrence of all violence, their regard for truth and the

inobtrusiveness of their opinions render them very inoffensive members

of the state" (H. H. Wilson). The doctrines of Kabir are taught, mostly

in the form of dialogues, in numerous Hindi works, composed by his

disciples and adherents, who, however, usually profess to give the

teacher's own words.

The peculiar conciliatory tendencies of Kabir were carried on with even

greater zeal from the latter part of the 15th century by one of his

followers, Nanak Shah, the promulgator of the creed of the _Nanak

Shahis_ or _Sikhs_--i.e. (Sanskr.) _sishya_, disciples, whose guru, or

teacher, he called himself--a peaceful sect at first until, in

consequence of Mahommedan persecution, a martial spirit was infused into

it by the tenth, and last, guru, Govind Shah, changing it into a

political organization. Whilst originally more akin in its principles to

the Moslem faith, the sect seems latterly to have shown tendencies

towards drifting back to the Hindu pale.

Of Ramananda's disciples and successors several others, besides Kabir,

have established schismatic divisions of their own, which do not,

however, offer any very marked differences of creed. The most

important of these, the Dadu Panthi sect, founded by Dadu about the

year 1600, has a numerous following in Ajmir and Marwar, one section

of whom, the Nagas, engage largely in military service, whilst the

others are either householders or mendicants. The followers of this

creed wear no distinctive sectarial mark or badge, except a skull-cap;

nor do they worship any visible image of any deity, the repetition

(_japa_) of the name of Rama being the only kind of adoration

practised by them.

Eroticism and Krishna worship.

Although the Vaishnava sects hitherto noticed, in their adoration of

Vishnu and his incarnations, Krishna and Ramachandra, usually associate

with these gods their wives, as their _saktis_, or female energies, the

sexual element is, as a rule, only just allowed sufficient scope to

enhance the emotional character of the rites of worship. In some of the

later Vaishnava creeds, on the other hand, this element is far from

being kept within the bounds of moderation and decency. The favourite

object of adoration with adherents of these sects is Krishna with his

mate--but not the devoted friend and counsellor of the Pandavas and

deified hero of epic song, nor the ruler of Dvaraka and wedded lord of

Rukmini, but the juvenile Krishna, Govinda or Bala Gopala, "the cowherd

lad," the foster son of the cowherd Nanda of Gokula, taken up with his

amorous sports with the _Gopis_, or wives of the cowherds of Vrindavana

(Brindaban, near Mathura on the Yamuna), especially his favourite

mistress Radha or Radhika. This episode in the legendary life of Krishna

has every appearance of being a later accretion. After barely a few

allusions to it in the epics, it bursts forth full-blown in the

Harivansa, the Vishnu-purana, the Narada-Pancharatra and the

Bhagavata-purana, the tenth canto of which, dealing with the life of

Krishna, has become, through vernacular versions, especially the Hindi

_Prem-sagar_, or "ocean of love," a favourite romance all over India,

and has doubtless helped largely to popularize the cult of Krishna.

Strange to say, however, no mention is as yet made by any of these works

of Krishna's favourite Radha; it is only in another Purana--though

scarcely deserving that designation--that she makes her appearance, viz.

in the Brahma-vaivarta, in which Krishna's amours in Nanda's cow-station

are dwelt upon in fulsome and wearisome detail; whilst the poet

Jayadeva, in the 12th century, made her love for the gay and inconstant

boy the theme of his beautiful, if highly voluptuous, lyrical drama,

_Gita-govinda_.

The earliest of the sects which associate Radha with Krishna in their

worship is that of the Nimavats, founded by Nimbaditya or Nimbarka

(i.e. "the sun of the Nimba tree"), a teacher of uncertain date, said

to have been a Telugu Brahman who subsequently established himself at

Mathura (Muttra) on the Yamuna, where the headquarters of his sect

have remained ever since. The Mahant of their monastery at Dhruva

Kshetra near Mathura, who claims direct descent from Nimbarka, is said

to place the foundation of that establishment as far back as the 5th

century--doubtless an exaggerated claim; but if Jayadeva, as is

alleged, and seems by no means improbable, was really a follower of

Nimbarka, this teacher must have flourished, at latest, in the early

part of the 12th century. He is indeed taken by some authorities to be

identical with the mathematician Bhaskara Acharya, who is known to

have completed his chief work in A.D. 1150. It is worthy of remark, in

this respect, that--in accordance with Ramanuja's and Nimbarka's

philosophical theories--Jayadeva's presentation of Krishna's fickle

love for Radha is usually interpreted in a mystical sense, as

allegorically depicting the human soul's striving, through love, for

reunion with God, and its ultimate attainment, after many

backslidings, of the longed-for goal. As the chief authority of their

tenets, the Nimavats recognize the Bhagavata-purana; though several

works, ascribed to Nimbarka--partly of a devotional character and

partly expository of Vedanta topics--are still extant. Adherents of

this sect are fairly numerous in northern India, their frontal mark

consisting of the usual two perpendicular white lines, with, however,

a circular black spot between them.

Of greater importance than the sect just noticed, because of their far

larger following, are the two sects founded early in the 16th century

by Vallabha (Ballabha) Acharya and Chaitanya. In the forms of worship

favoured by votaries of these creeds the emotional and erotic elements

are allowed yet freer scope than in those that preceded them; and, as

an effective auxiliary to these tendencies, the use of the vernacular

dialects in prayers and hymns of praise takes an important part in the

religious service. The Vallabhacharis, or, as they are usually called,

from the title of their spiritual heads, the Gokulastha Gosains, i.e.

"the cow-lords (_gosvamin_) residing in Gokula," are very numerous in

western and central India. Vallabha, the son of a Telinga Brahman,

after extensive journeyings all over India, settled at Gokula near

Mathura, and set up a shrine with an image of Krishna Gopala. About

the year 1673, in consequence of the fanatical persecutions of the

Mogul emperor, this image was transferred to Nathdvara in Udaipur

(Mewar), where the shrine of Srinatha ("the lord of Sri," i.e. Vishnu)

continues to be the chief centre of worship for adherents of this

creed; whilst seven other images, transferred from Mathura at the same

time, are located at different places in Rajputana. Vallabha himself

went subsequently to reside at Benares, where he died. In the doctrine

of this Vaishnava prophet, the adualistic theory of Sankara is

resorted to as justifying a joyful and voluptuous cult of the deity.

For, if the human soul is identical with God, the practice of

austerities must be discarded as directed against God, and it is

rather by a free indulgence of the natural appetites and the pleasures

of life that man's love for God will best be shown. The followers of

his creed, amongst whom there are many wealthy merchants and bankers,

direct their worship chiefly to Gopal Lal, the boyish Krishna of

Vrindavana, whose image is sedulously attended like a revered living

person eight times a day--from its early rising from its couch up to

its retiring to repose at night. The sectarial mark of the adherents

consists of two red perpendicular lines, meeting in a semicircle at

the root of the nose, and having a round red spot painted between

them. Their principal doctrinal authority is the Bhagavata-purana, as

commented upon by Vallabha himself, who was also the author of several

other Sanskrit works highly esteemed by his followers. In this sect,

children are solemnly admitted to full membership at the early age of

four, and even two, years of age, when a rosary, or necklace, of 108

beads of basil (tulsi) wood is passed round their necks, and they are

taught the use of the octo-syllabic formula _Sri-Krishnah saranam

mama_, "Holy Krishna is my refuge." Another special feature of this

sect is that their spiritual heads, the Gosains, also called

Maharajas, so far from submitting themselves to self-discipline and

austere practices, adorn themselves in splendid garments, and allow

themselves to be habitually regaled by their adherents with choice

kinds of food; and being regarded as the living representatives of the

"lord of the Gopis" himself, they claim and receive in their own

persons all acts of attachment and worship due to the deity, even, it

is alleged, to the extent of complete self-surrender. In the final

judgment of the famous libel case of the Bombay Maharajas, before the

Supreme Court of Bombay, in January 1862, these improprieties were

severely commented upon; and though so unsparing a critic of Indian

sects as Jogendra Nath seems not to believe in actual immoral

practices on the part of the Maharajas, still he admits that "the

corrupting influence of a religion, that can make its female votaries

address amorous songs to their spiritual guides, must be very great."

A modern offshoot of Vallabha's creed, formed with the avowed object

of purging it of its objectionable features, was started, in the early

years of the 19th century, by Sahajananda, a Brahman of the Oudh

country, who subsequently assumed the name of Svami Narayana. Having

entered on his missionary labours at Ahmadabad, and afterwards removed

to Jetalpur, where he had a meeting with Bishop Heber, he subsequently

settled at the village of Wartal, to the north-west of Baroda, and

erected a temple to Lakshmi-Narayana, which, with another at

Ahmadabad, forms the two chief centres of the sect, each being

presided over by a Maharaja. Their worship is addressed to Narayana,

i.e. Vishnu, as the Supreme Being, together with Lakshmi, as well as

to Krishna and Radha. The sect is said to be gaining ground in

Gujarat. Chaitanya, the founder of the great Vaishnava sect of

Bengal, was the son of a high-caste Brahman of Nadiya, the famous

Bengal seat of Sanskrit learning, where he was born in 1485, two years

after the birth of Martin Luther, the German reformer. Having married

in due time, and a second time after the death of his first wife, he

lived as a "householder" (_grihastha_) till the age of 24, when he

renounced his family ties and set out as a religious mendicant

(_vairagin_), visiting during the next six years the principal places

of pilgrimage in northern India, and preaching with remarkable success

his doctrine of Bhakti, or passionate devotion to Krishna, as the

Supreme Deity. He subsequently made over to his principal disciples

the task of consolidating his community, and passed the last twelve

years of his life at Puri in Orissa, the great centre of the worship

of Vishnu as Jagannatha, or "lord of the world," which he remodelled

in accordance with his doctrine, causing the mystic songs of Jayadeva

to be recited before the images in the morning and evening as part of

the daily service; and, in fact, as in the other Vaishnava creeds,

seeking to humanize divine adoration by bringing it into accord with

the experience of human love. To this end, music, dancing,

singing-parties (_sankirtan_), theatricals--in short anything

calculated to produce the desired impression--would prove welcome to

him. His doctrine of Bhakti distinguishes five grades of devotional

feeling in the _Bhaktas_, or faithful adherents: viz. (_santi_) calm

contemplation of the deity; (_dasya_) active servitude; (_sakhya_)

friendship or personal regard; (_vatsalya_) tender affection as

between parents and children; (_madhurya_) love or passionate

attachment, like that which the Gopis felt for Krishna. Chaitanya also

seems to have done much to promote the celebration on an imposing

scale of the great Puri festival of the Ratha-yatra, or

"car-procession," in the month of Ashadha, when, amidst multitudes of

pilgrims, the image of Krishna, together with those of his brother

Balarama and his sister Subhadra, is drawn along, in a huge car, by

the devotees. Just as this festival was, and continues to be, attended

by people from all parts of India, without distinction of caste or

sex, so also were all classes, even Mahommedans, admitted by Chaitanya

as members of his sect. Whilst numerous observances are recommended as

more or less meritorious, the ordinary form of worship is a very

simple one, consisting as it does mainly of the constant repetition of

names of Krishna, or Krishna and Radha, which of itself is considered

sufficient to ensure future bliss. The partaking of flesh food and

spirituous liquor is strictly prohibited. By the followers of this

sect, also, an extravagant degree of reverence is habitually paid to

their gurus or spiritual heads. Indeed, Chaitanya himself, as well as

his immediate disciples, have come to be regarded as complete or

partial incarnations of the deity to whom adoration is due, as to

Krishna himself; and their modern successors, the Gosains, share to

the fullest extent in the devout attentions of the worshippers.

Chaitanya's movement, being chiefly directed against the vile

practices of the Saktas, then very prevalent in Bengal, was doubtless

prompted by the best and purest of intentions; but his own doctrine of

divine, though all too human, love was, like that of Vallabha, by no

means free from corruptive tendencies,--yet, how far these tendencies

have worked their way, who would say? On this point, Dr W. W.

Hunter--who is of opinion that "the death of the reformer marks the

beginning of the spiritual decline of Vishnu-worship," observes

(_Orissa_, i. 111), "The most deplorable corruption of Vishnu-worship

at the present day is that which has covered the temple walls with

indecent sculptures, and filled its innermost sanctuaries with

licentious rites" ... yet ... "it is difficult for a person not a

Hindu to pronounce upon the real extent of the evil. None but a Hindu

can enter any of the larger temples, and none but a Hindu priest

really knows the truth about their inner mysteries"; whilst the

well-known native scholar Babu Rajendralal Mitra points out

(_Antiquities of Orissa_, i. 111) that "such as they are, these

sculptures date from centuries before the birth of Chaitanya, and

cannot, therefore, be attributed to his doctrines or to his followers.

As a Hindu by birth, and a Vaishnava by family religion, I have had

the freest access to the innermost sanctuaries and to the most secret

of scriptures. I have studied the subject most extensively, and have

had opportunities of judging which no European can have, and I have no

hesitation in saying that, 'the mystic songs' of Jayadeva and the

'ocean of love' notwithstanding, there is nothing in the rituals of

Jagannatha which can be called licentious." Whilst in Chaitanya's

creed, Krishna, in his relations to Radha, remains at least

theoretically the chief partner, an almost inevitable step was taken

by some minor sects in attaching the greater importance to the female

element, and making Krishna's love for his mistress the guiding

sentiment of their faith. Of these sects, it will suffice to mention

that of the Radha-Vallabhis, started in the latter part of the 16th

century, who worship Krishna as Radha-vallabha, "the darling of

Radha." The doctrines and practices of these sects clearly verge upon

those obtaining in the third principal division of Indian sectarians

which will now be considered.