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THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA

THE INDIAN EMPIRE

HENRY FROWDE, M.A.

PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF HIS MAJESTY'S SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA IN COUNCIL

OXFORD

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1909

PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

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Religions: India

Vedic period

THE literary records of the religions of India begin with the period ; Veda, which is not, as is sometimes supposed, a body of aoo^BxT primitive popular poetry, but rather a collection of artificially composed Hymns, the work, in the main, of a priestly class. Its tone generally is ritualistic, the Hymns being intended for use in connexion with the Soma oblation and the fire-sacrifice. In the Veda the powers and phenomena of Nature are in- voked as personified gods, or even as impersonal existences. The ritual to which these Hymns were an accompaniment was by no means of a simple type, though much less highly developed than in the succeeding period.

The Aryan religion

The Aryan The Indo-Aryans brought little theology with them from religion, their original home beyond the mountain barriers of India. A few gods already in a state of decadence, the worship of ancestors, and some simple rites are all that they possessed in common with their western kinsfolk, among whom their con- nexion with the Iranians was most intimate, as is shown by the common knowledge of geography and its nomenclature. Recent study of the Indian dialects indicates at least two successive waves of invasion into India the older, now represented by the speakers of Kashmiri, Marathi, Bengali, and Oriya ; the later by those who use Panjabi, Rajastham, Gujarat!, and Western Hindi, who came in like a wedge through the earlier tribes, and settled about the SaraswatT. Dr. Grierson has ingeniously suggested that the contests between these successive bodies of immigrants are represented in the Veda by the struggle of the rival priests, Visvamitra and Vasishtha, and by the war of the Kauravas and Pandavas, which forms the subject of the Mahabharata. This theory would account for much of the varying character of the cults represented in the older sacred literature.

The Vedas

The Rig-veda, with its supplement, the SSma-veda, was com- posed when the Aryans had reached the point of junction of the Punjab rivers with the Indus ; the Black and White Yajur veda when they had reached the neighbourhood of the Sutlej and Jumna ; the Atharvan, combining the lower beliefs of Aryans and aborigines, when the new-comers had penetrated as far as Benares.

Vedic theology

Theology, as we find it in the Veda, begins with the worship Vedic of the things of heaven, and ends with the worship of the theolo fiT- things of earth. We have, first, the worship of the sky gods ; then of those that rule the atmosphere ; lastly, of those that rule on earth. Under the first class comes the worship of the sun in various forms, as Siirya, ' the glowing one ' ; Savi- tar, ' the enlightener ' ; Bhaga, ' the giver of blessings ' ; and Vishnu, who, except in the kindliness of his nature, has little in common with his later form as one of the Hindu triad. In another form as Pushan, god of agriculture, roads, and cattle, who is also known as Kapardin, ' he of the braided hair/ he forms a link between the Vedic gods and Siva. Dyaus, the shining sky, the Zeus of the Greeks, receives less special wor- ship than might have been expected. In Varuna as the sky god a higher plane is reached. He sits enthroned in the vault of heaven ; the sun and stars are the eyes with which he sees all that passes on earth. He, more than any of his brother gods, realizes the conception of personal holiness as an ideal for mankind.

The gods departmental pantheism

Among the mid-air gods, Indra gained his ascendancy on Indian soil, where the increasing dependence of an agricultural people on the periodical rains popularized his worship. As a war god he fought in heaven against the demon that dispersed the rain clouds, and was thus adopted by the Kshattriyas to lead them on earth in their campaigns against the aborigines.

Great as are these gods of sky and air, greater still are the earth-born gods : Agni, the fire god, as manifested in the sacri- fice, and Soma, the moon-plant (Sarcosfcmma viminalc^ or Asclcpitis (uida of botanists), the worship of which is based on its intoxicating qualities. The latter came to be identified with the moon, a theory still farther developed in the post- Vedic mythology.

With Yama we reach a stage of distinct anthropomorphism. He might have lived for ever, but he chose to die, and was the first to point out to his descendants the way to the other world. To his heaven, guarded by two monstrous dogs, the souls of the departed are conveyed, and are adored on earth as the Pitri, or sainted dead. To retain their place in the abodes of the blessed, the souls need constantly to be refreshed by the pious food-offerings of their descendants, Hence arose the Sraddha, or periodical feast of the dead, which has had far- reaching effects in the development of the theory of sacrifice.

The gods Thus the Vedic gods, like those of Homer, were depart- depart- mental deities, each nominally invested with a special sphere Pantheism, of action; but their offices were constantly being confounded, and the function of one deity was without hesitation attributed to another. The worshipper, in fact, never cared to determine the relative positions of his gods.

Swayed by the impulse of the moment, he invokes now one, now another, to relieve him from danger or to confer a blessing. Hence the beginnings of Indian Pantheism, of which the first literary record is the famous Purusha Hymn of the Kig-veda. Bu*, combined with these pantheistic ideas, there was in Vedic times a groping after one Supreme Being. Even at this time the deepest thinkers began to see dimly that the Atman, or Spirit, pervaded all things, and that the world and even the gods themselves were but manifestations of it.

Thus at the close of the Vedic period philosophers had gained the idea of a Father-god, known as Prajapati, or Visvakarman, names which in the older Hymns are merely epithets applied to particular gods. This theory was farther developed in the next period, that of the Brahmanas.

The brahmana period 800 to 500B.C

Brahmana is a digest of the dicta on questions of ritual traditionally ascribed to the earlier teachers, and intended for the guidance of priests. In this period the prevailing tone is jain direct contrast to the graceful poetry and naive speculation of the Vedic singers. The atmosphere is now that of religiosity rather than of religion. The Aryans were by this time per- manently settled in Madhya-drsa, the ' Middle I^and,' or Upper Gangetic valley. This was the birthplace of the special form of faith known as Urahmanism, which in this connexion means the ritualistic and philosophical development of Vrdism. It had its roots in the older Hymns, but it was a new form of faith with a new philosophy added. The old theory of the Atman was developed, until all forces and phenomena were identified with one Spiritual Being, which when unmanifested and impersonal is the neuter Brahma ; when regarded as a Creator, the masculine Brahma ; when manifested in the highest order of men, Brahmana, the BrAhman Levite class.

The supremacy of the priesthood

This supremacy of the priestly class had its origin in the fthc Purohita (praepositits, 'ho that is placed in front'), the hood. family priest, who, as ritual doveloj>ed, took the place of the house father, by whom the earlier and simpler worship had been conducted. The priests of the Rig-veda were not as yet organized into a profession, nor did they claim their office by hereditary right. But the period of the Brahmanas shows a rapid development of their pretensions. We are told that there are two kinds of gods, the Devas and the Brahmanas, the latter regarded as deities among men. With this new theology was combined the dogma of the supremacy of sacrifice. c The sun would not rise/ says the Satapatha Brahmana, ' if the priest did not make sacrifice/ When we meet it first in the Indian ritual, sacrifice is merely a thank-offering ; then it comes to be regarded as a means of nourishing the Pitri, or the gods ; finally, a means of wresting favours from them. This naturally resulted in the exaltation of sacrificial ritual. Every religious act must be accompanied by its special Mantra, or formula, each word of which is momentous, each tone fraught with mystery.

Theology and worship in the brahmanas

The writers of this period concern themselves little with Theology theology ; what they are interested in is worship. Their gods are much the same as those of the older Hymns, but they Brahma- extended the pantheon by the admission of allegorical personi- nas fications, spirits, demons, and goblins. These, though not specifically referred to in the early Hymns, are not necessarily a new creation. The Atharva-veda is evidence, if evidence be needed, that such beliefs are the stock-in-trade of the hedge- priest among all races at an early stage of culture.

life after death

As for cschatology, hell with its torments is well known ' or else the wicked man will be re-born in some wretched state of being, metempsychosis appearing in this way under the form of an expiation. The good man goes to Svarga, or the com- munity of sonic god ; the sojourn with Vaina is not forgotten J '; but the fate of the dead is nowhere clearly defined. We read of the weighing in a balance of the dead man's good and evil deeds; or >u> arc told that he has to pass between two raging fires, which consume the evil man and let the good pass by.

Human sacrifice

One remarkable legend in the Brahmanas embalms a tradi-tion of human saciifiee. The tale of Harischandra tells how sacrifice the king was cured of his leprosy by the purchase of Sunah- sephas, who was to be offered as a sacrifice to appease the wrath of Varuna. The boy, when led to the stake, prays to the gods for deliverance ; they loose him from his bonds and cure the king's disease. It is certain that human sacrifice prevailed among the Indo-Aryans. Jn a more primitive form it existed until quite recent days among the Khonds and other forest

Theology in the Upanishads

The anti-Brahmancal reaction

tribes of the Central Indian hills, by whom, like the Mexicans before the conquest and many savage races, the Meriah or victim was solemnly immolated, and fragments of the corpse distributed over the fields to promote the fertility of the crops. Even now, in dark corners of the land, occasional sacrifices of human victims to the goddess Kali are recorded.

1 In the Vedic Hymns,' writes Dr. Hopkins, * man fears the gods. In the Brahmanas man subdues the gods, and fears God. In the Upanishads man ignores the gods and becomes God. 7 But, as the same writer goes on to point out, 'if one took these three strata of thought to be quite independent of each other he would go amiss. Rather, it is Uue that the Brahmanas logically continue what the Hymns begin ; that the Upanishads logically carry out the thought of the Brah- manas.' Nor does this statement rightly define the historical order of the theological development, because, though no definite chronology exists, it seems fairly certain that the date of the earliest Upanishad, or exposition of the hidden spiritual doctrine, is not much later than the most modern additions to the Vedic canon.

The speculations of the sages of the Brahmana period were extended in this way : the Atman, or 'sour of the Brahmanas, is now identified with Brahma, or the holy principle which animates Nature ; in other words, the Atman replaces the personal Prajdpati. True knowledge leads to supreme bliss by absorption into Brahma, and this is com- bined with the theory of transmigration, which was fully established when Buddha arose, for he accepted it without question. This was not so much a new philosophy as a new religion, a religion without rites and ceremonies, involving existence without pain of desire, life without end, freedom from re-birth. * The spirit of the sage becomes one with the Eternal ; man becomes God ! .'

While, during the period represented by the Brahmanas, priests were engaged in elaborating the cultus, and philosophers in studying the nature and fate of the soul, the mass of the people were little affected by such speculations, and the time was ripe for change. The reformation assumed a twofold shape : first, the rise of the two so-called ' heretical ' move- ments, which culminated in Buddhism and Jainism ; secondly, the almost contemporaneous evolution of the sectarian gods. The bright and happy life of the early Aryans, as reflected in the Vedas, had been succeeded by a period of priestly ascen- dancy. The mass of legend, largely framed in the interest of the 1 Hopkins, pp, 339, 341,

dominant class, which forms the history of the time, seems to show that the Bnihmans, at least in the original seat of their power, had repressed the Kshattriya, or warrior, class. The Vaisyas were regarded as little better than contributories to the funds by which the sacrificial system was maintained ; the Su- dras were quite beyond the pale of salvation. Thus for the majority of the people the future was hopeless. They were told that the misery of this present life was the result of sins com- mitted in some previous birth ; though unavoidable now, it might be alleviated in some future state by bribing the priest- hood to perform a sacrifice. The Aryan Holy Land was parcelled out among a number of petty chieftains, who waged internecine war, one against the other. The prevailing tone of feeling was as pessimistic as the systems of the philosophers.

Gautama,the Buddha,596-508 B.C

The leader of one of these movements of reform was Gautama, Gautama, the son of a petty prince, or headman, of a group of villages buddha occupied by the Sakyas, one of the many Kshattriya clans in 0.596-508 the tarai, or swampy lowlands at the foot of the Lower Hima- B - c - layas. The story of his life, which can only with difficulty be disentangled from the legends which have grown round the real facts, has been often told. He is said to have enjoyed in his early years all that a life of sensuous ease could provide.

Suddenly his conscience was stirred by a profound sense of the vanity of human life. Self-mortification was at this time taking the place of sacrifice, and he embraced the only course open to men of his class, which might lead to a higher spirituality in other words, he became a Yogi, or wandering ascetic. Thereby, at the very outset of his career, he accepted the current philo- sophy, that a man's object should be to avoid reincarnation, and that it is Karma, ' action/ the control of passion, in short, the building up of character, which conditions any future birth. So far his hope was, as is the aim of the Hindu ascetic, merely to win salvation for himself, not to save his fellow men. Sud- denly, after a course of mortification he is ' enlightened/ a view quite foreign to the thought of his day, which regarded the mechanical use of cultus and formula, uninterrupted from birth to death, as the road to salvation.

Then he announced the Fourfold Truth that life is the vanity of vanities ; that birth and re-birth, the cycle of reincarnation, are the result of passion and desire ; that to escape these evils desire must be destroyed by what he called the Eightfold Path right belief, right resolve, right word, right act, right life, right effort, right thinking, right meditation. This was the Gospel which the Master, now become Buddha, 'the Enlightened One/ preached during some fivc-and- forty years' wanderings in Magadha, the modern Bihar, and the neighbourhood of Benares. The chronology of his life is most uncertain. He is said to have reached the age of eighty-eight years, and the date of his death is fixed by the last critic, Mr. V. A. Smith, about 508 B.C.

Buddhism

The religion thus founded, like Jainism, is not a religion in its origin. t ^ e common sense of the term. Both are rather, in their earliest form, monastic organizations, orders of begging fraternities, like the Dominicans and Franciscans. The monastic system was not an innovation. It was a development of the last four successive stages (asrama) of the Brahmanical schools, that of the SannyasI, or ascetic, the only difference bemg that the Brahmanic mendicants never formed themselves into such large organizations as the Buddhists and Jains.

The similarity, in fact, between the practices of the two sects arose from the circumstance that both followed the same model. On the rise of Brahman ascendancy it seems that a tendency prevailed to restrict the entry into the stage of an ascetic to members of the priestly classes. This probably led to the growth of non- Brahmanic orders, originally intended for members of the warrior class, to which the founders of Buddhism and Jainism both belonged. Eventually persons of other castes were admitted.

It is easy to understand that these movements had their origin, not in the upper Ganges valley, the Holy Land of Brahmanism, but in the east country, Magadha, where Brahman influence was less predominant, and where the Kshattriya class was regarded as superior to that of the priest. Antagonism would naturally arise between the old and the new orders, and would ultimately compel the new-comers not only to discard the Brahmanic sacrificial cultus, but even to question the authority of the Vedas. When this stage was reached, their exclusion from the pale of Brahmanism was inevitable.

Buddhism; It would be a mistake to suppose that Buddhism and its relation j a j n j srn were directed from the outset consciously in opposition to the caste system. Caste, in fact, at the time of the rise of Buddhism was only beginning to develop; and in later days, when Buddhism commenced its missionary career, it took caste with it into regions where up to that time the institution had not penetrated. It must also be said that the lay members of these new orders, though they looked for spiritual guidance to their own teachers, retained the services of their Brahman priests to perform the domestic services at birth, marriage, and death. Even at the present clay many Jains permit connubium with a family which follows the Brahmanic rule. Such a woman during her married life continues the religious rites amid which she was born.

The ethics of Buddhism, again, were not the invention Buddhist of the Master. Even so early as the time of the Satapatha et lcs ' Brahmana, which had its origin in the same part of the country as Buddhism, we find a forecast of the teaching of Buddha. Much of the terminology is the same, without, of course, the technical Buddhist connotation ; and among the teachers special mention is made of the Gautamas, a family name of the Sakyas, Buddha's tribe. The rules which the Master announced as the Truths and the Paths were in a large measure coijimon to Brahmanical ethical writers. The sanctity of animal life (ahinsa\ for instance, is an old Hindu belief, arising directly from the principle of metempsychosis, which links together in one chain all living creatures, gods and demons, men and animals.

Buddhisit theology and psychology

In its theology and psychology Buddhism ignored the Buddhist speculations of the priestly thinkers. Buddha does not deny ^ ol< ^ y the existence of the gods; he simply declines to discuss chology. the question. He leaves it to the priests to avert the vengeance of the gods, or to win from them boons which in his view are valueless. His standpoint in such matters is the indifference of the layman. In his metaphysics, again, he does not concern himself with the origin of things ; rather he takes them for granted. He is more concerned with the practical matter of salvation. He evades the question of a supernatural Creator by explaining the Universe as Will and Idea, and placing Karma, or the ethical doctrine of retribution, in the place of a divine controlling Intelligence.

The buddhisit way of salvation

His way of salvation is different alike from that of the The Brahman or the Jain. * Knowledge,' writes Dr. Hopkins 1 , 'is Bnddhfct wisdom to the Brahman ; asceticism is wisdom to the Jain ; salvation, purity and love is the first wisdom to the Buddhist.' Nor, again, was his faith in conflict with the other religions of his time. The two systems, Buddhism and Brahmanism, co- existed for some fourteen centuries after the death of the Master. Certain kings and certain eras were specially Buddhistic, but the historical evidence for the continuous existence of Brahmanism side by side with Buddhism after the period of Alexander (327 B.C.) is conclusive.

Causes of the spread of salvation

The question may then be asked How did a creed so Causes cf pessimistic as Buddhism win the enthusiasm of the people ? All it seemed to offer was the denial of the existence of the i sm .

soul ; and ignoring the question of the extinction of being, it fixed the aim of the believer in Nirvana, which meant to the Master release from that sinful condition of mind which would otherwise, according to the mystery of Karma, be the cause of renewed individual existence. What the new creed brought was the message of freedom from the Brahmanic law of sacrifice, and it enjoined the observance of a high moral code.

It was a rule of practical benevolence, gradually displacing the early ideal of mere personal salvation, and extending its blessings to all who accepted its teaching. Slowly the message spread from the Kshattriya class, to which it was first given, to the man in search of peace, whatever his race or,. caste might be. Most of all, perhaps, its popularity rested on the magnetic personality of the Master, whose life was spent in active benevolence, and round whom by degrees centred a body of most entrancing legend. As the faith came to be influenced by foreign beliefs, such as Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, and Christianity, the Buddha was regarded as a divine being, on whose perfections the believer might meditate, a personal Saviour whom he might adore. These were beliefs quite opposed to the sentiment of the age, which in later times the reformed Brahmanism was likewise forced to adopt as one of the distinctive notes of its teaching.

The sangha or congregation of monks

The Again, the strength of Buddhism largely depended on the Sangha, or Sangha, or Congregation of the Monastic Order. This was an tior^of 8 institution quite alien to Brahmanism, which, even to this day, Monks. has never dreamed of forming a Convocation. Its constitution was probably of gradual growth. At any rate, by the time of Asoka we find it a well-organized body, in possession of canonical books. The primary object of this Convocation was to frame a code of discipline for the monastic communities. But, as so often happens in similar organizations, it fell more and more under the control of precisians, and the simple rules which provided for the discipline of the monks in the period immediately succeeding the death of its founder became burdensome. By degrees the rule of life came to be even more restrictive than the Brhmanical caste system, and ended by being a formidable barrier against spiritual inde- pendence.

Buddhism a state religion

The history of the Buddhist Councils by which Church government was founded rests mostly on legend. All that seems well established is that about this time a profound change occurred in the politics of Northern India, which led to the formation of a great military monarchy, that of the Mauryas, which by the time of Asoka (c. 269-232 B.C.) had extended its limits much beyond the bounds of Brahmanism. This monarchy was the creation of an adventurer, who is said to have been of Sudra origin, and his dynasty was thus disposed to ally itself with a non-Brahmanical order, whose aims were cosmopolitan, in contrast to the exclusiveness of Hinduism. Buddhism under Asoka thus became the state religion of the Mauryas ; but it is doubtful if it really gained by its absorption into political life. The accession of worldly influence was naturally accompanied by a falling off in spirituality. To all appearance, in the period between 200 B.C. and 100 A.O. the propaganda seemed successful.

It was at this time that the great ecclesiastical buildings, like the . monasteries and the StQpas at Sanchi and Bharhut, with which the history of Indian architecture begins, were erected, and the inscriptions with their records of donations by believers attest the influence of the faith. Another important develop- ment in this period was the production of images of the Buddha, an art probably originating in the Punjab under Greek influence, later on to be adopted by Hindus and Jains for the adornment of their myriad temples.

Buddhism as a missionary religion

The transformation of a local cult into a world-wide religion Buddhism was the work of Asoka alone. In Ceylon the faith introduced as . a . the time of his contemporary, King Devanampnya iisya, religion,/ made rapid progress, and its adherents now number more than two millions. Thence it spread to Burma and Siam, the con- version of the former dating from the middle of the fifth century A.D. The farther progress of the faith to China and Japan lies outside the limits of the present sketch.

Later Indian buddhisim

Returning to its fortunes in India Buddhism secured the Later support of the great King Kanishka, under whom a Council Jf"* 1 ??. was held at Jullundur about 100 A.D., or a little later. In this Council the Sinhalese branch was not represented. About this time the MahSySna school, which in an incipient stage was already in existence, came into prominence. In fact, the period of Kanishka marks the beginning of the decay of Indian Buddhism. 'The point of divergence of the two schools,' writes Dr. Waddell *, * was the theistic Mahayana doctrine, which substituted for the agnostic idealism and simple morality of Buddha a speculative theistic system with a mysticism of sophistic nihilism in the background. Primitive Buddhism practically confined salvation to the few ; the Mahayana ex- tended salvation to the entire universe. Hence the new faith

Buddhism in decay

was called the Great Vehicle, Mahayana; the other, in con- tempt, the HmaySna, or Imperfect Vehicle, which could carry few to Nirvana, and which they alleged was fit only for low intellects. This, the modern Tibetan form of the faith, repre- sents the influences of the Bhagavad-glta and Sivaism,' with much more from a still lower order of belief. What we know of the later history of Indian Buddhism is derived from the abundant sculpture and epigraphical records, and an extensive Nepalese, Tibetan, and Chinese literature. Of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims, Fa Hian (399-413 A.D.) found the two religions working side by side, and Brahman priests honoured equally with Buddhist monks. Kiuen Tsiang (629-45 A.D.) describes how Brahmanism was gaining the ascendancy over the rival faith. Buddhism was most flourish- ing in the Ganges-Jumna Doab, then ruled by the powerful monarch Harshavardhana, or Siladitya, The actual decay of Buddhism seems to have set in from about 750 A.D.

In the eleventh century it still held its ground in outlying pro- vinces, like Kashmir and Orissa, and the Pal kings of Bihar remained true to the faith till the conquest of the province by Bakhtiyar Khilji in 1199 A.D. The final establishment of Mublim power led to its complete disappearance from Northern India. In Western India Buddhism was in the ninth century a living religion, favoured by the authorities, and it seems to have survived till the middle of the twelfth century, when the Saiva revival was directed against both Buddhists and Jains.

Causes of the decline of Buddhism

We can only speculate on the causes which led to the almost r complete disappearance of this once dominant religion from the of Buddhism. land of its birth. One fact seems certain, that although in some places its adherents may have suffered from active perse- cution, Buddhism died chiefly by reason of natural decay, and from the competition of new sects which arose under the in- fluence of the reformed Brahmanism. The original creed was perhaps too simple and, once the immediate pressure of Brahmanism was removed, not sensuous enough to satisfy a people to whom a form of worship like that of Krishna was more attractive. It demanded from its followers a standard of morality much in advance of their stage of culture. It involved the discontinuance of sacrifice, and of the myriad methods by which the Hindu has ever tried to win the favour or avert the hostility of his gods. It abolished such a vague entity as Brahma, into whom every Hindu hopes to he absorbed, and it substituted Nirvana, or extinction, as the end of all Causes of things. Jainism, as we shall see, by its democratic constitu- tion, retained a hold on the people which Buddhism failed to secure.

Buddhisim in a present

Out of nearly nine and a half million Buddhists enumerated Buddhism at the last Census, all but about 300,000 are in Burma. They exist in small numbers along the north and north-east frontiers of Bengal, and in the Punjab districts of Spiti, Lahul, and KanSwar, on the lower slope of the Himalayas, where there is a considerable Tibetan element in the population. All along the Bengal frontier Buddhism is being gradually pushed back by Brahmanism. In Nepal it is still a powerful element, in spite of the steady opposition exercised against it by the Hindu ruling dynasty. '\ he Burmese Buddhists are generally regarded as belonging to the Southern School, but the influence of the Northern School has contributed to mould the religion of the province in its present form. Here, though active and well organized, and educating in a somewhat imperfect way a large proportion of its youths, it is in the main of a debased type.

While some sympathetic observers have found much to praise, others describe it as * a thin veneer of philosophy laid over the main structure of Shamanistic belief. Nat, or demon worship, supplies the solid constituents that hold the faith together ; Buddhism supplies the superficial polish. In the hour of great heart-search ings the Burman falls back on his primaeval beliefs/ Attempts ha\e been made to minimize the hostility shown to us by the priesthood during the rebellion which followed our occupation of the Upper Province. But, considering the close relations that existed between the monks and the royal Court, it is safe to accept the opinion of Mr. Lowis, that ' there were few more pertinacious and dogged opponents to the British rule in the new territory than the wearers of the yellow robe. 1

survivals of Buddhism in Bengal

Some attention has been recently given to a supposed sur- Survivals o vival of Buddhism among the Saraks of Bengal. Their name ? u is said to be derived from the Sanskrit Sravaka, 'a hearer, 1 a term used by the Jains to define a layman, by the Buddhists for the second order of monks residing in monasteries. In Orissa the Saraks worship Chaturbhuja, ' the four-armed one/ a title now applied by Hindus to Vishnu, but said to be identified by the Saraks with Buddha. A similar origin has been assigned to the Dharnia worship in Western Bengal. These beliefs have clearly some affinity to Buddhism or Jainism. How far they may have been transmitted through a Vaisbnava medium is not clear.

Jainism

Jainism is the second of the 'heretical' movements which led to the establishment of the non-Brahmanic orders, organized as a protest against the exclusion of all but BrShmans from the ascetic fraternities. Like Buddhism, it had its rise in Magadha, and its founder, like Gautama, was drawn from the warrior class. The two teachers were contemporaries, the life of Vardhamana extending from about 599 to 527 B.C. He is said to have been the disciple of an earlier saint, PSrsvanatha, the rules of whose order did not satisfy his ideas of stringency, one of the cardinal points of which was the custom of absolute nudity. The natural inference is that Varcihimana, who on the establishment of his order gained the name of Mahavlra, 'the great hero/ was only the reformer of a sect which had its origin in a still earlier protest against Brahman monopoly of the ascetic order. The title which he afterwards assumed, Jina, 'the victorious/ gave a name to the order which he founded.

Jainism contrasted with buddhisim

Jahrism The resemblances between Jainism and Buddhism are due, contrasted not to imitation, but to the fact that the basis of both was the Buddhism, same. In both the goal is Nirvana, but the tejm has a some- what different connotation in the two beliefs. With the Buddhist it implies extinction ; with the Jain, escape from the body, not from existence. The moral rules imposed upon neophytes are much the same in both orders. The fivefold vow of the Jains prescribes sanctity of animal life ; renuncia- tion of lying, which proceeds from anger, greed, fear, or mirth ; refusal to take things not given; chastity; renunciation of worldly attachments. In its metaphysics Jainism is more closely allied to the Sankhya philosophy than is Buddhism, the former recognizing a duality, eternal matter being opposed to eternal spirit. The Jain is more careful of animal life even than is the Buddhist, and to him are due those curious institutions, known as Pinjrapols, or animal hospitals, in which creatures of all kinds, even vermin, are protected and fed. Buddha, as we have seen, laid no stress on asceticism, while among the Jains it survives in a repulsive form.

The Jain schism

The most important event in the history of the order is the schism. schism, which led to the separation, maintained to this day, of the Svetambara, or ' white-clothed ' faction, who are found in the north and west of India, from the Digambara, or 'those clothed with the sky* in other words, the naked ascetics of the south, who are probably the older. The literatures of the two factions are quite distinct, the older sacred books, the Angas and Purvas, being possessed only by the Svetambaras. The first Jain Council, held at Pataliputra, the modern Patna, about 310 B.C., is said to have framed the Jain canon, and from this time was laid the foundation of the schism, which did not finally occur till early in the first century A.D. During the mediaeval period, Jainism secured much political influence. It became the state religion of the Chalukya princes of Gujarat and Marwar, and of the kings of the Coromandel Coast.

Many of its adherents held office as prime ministers in the Courts of Western, Central, and Southern India, and to this time are due the splendid series of Jain temples, such as those on Mount Abu and Girnar. On the Muhammadan conquest many of the stately Jain shrines were demolished, and their carved pillars utilized in building great mosques, such as that near the Kutb Minar of Delhi, at Ajmer and Ahmadabad.

Causes of the survival of jainism

Jainism is the only one of the early monastic orders which Causes of has survived to the present day in India. It escaped the ih * r s ?7 ival r J l of Jainism. disasters which overcame Buddhism, partly because its sever- ance from Brahmanism was never so complete; partly because it never adopted an active missionary policy, but preferred to practise its peculiar rites in a quiet, unobtrusive fashion. But the main reason is that, unlike Buddhism, it admitted to its Sangha, or Convocation, not only monks and nuns, but lay- brothers and lay-sisters. These lay brethren secured a well- established rank side by side with the monastic members, and thus among the Jains there was none of the rivalry between monk and layman which deprived Buddhism, in the later stage, of the support of the congregation at large.

Jain literature

It is only in recent years that the vast and intricate literature Jain litcrature of Jainism has been partially explored, and there is still ture * much to be done in the way of translation and investigation before the history of the order can be written. This ignorance of the real nature of its teaching is perhaps one cause of the contempt which the order has excited among some Western scholars. A recent writer 1 denies the right of existence to a faith whose principles are 'to deny God, worship man, and nourish vermin.'

The jain pantheon

The Jain pantheon consists of a body of deified saints, The Jain Tlrthankara, 'creating a passage through the circuit of life/ or F antllcon - Jina, 'those who have won the victory/ twenty-four of whom are assigned to the three ages, past, present, and future. Of these the chief are the deified founders of the order, Parsvanatha and Mah&vlra. The ascetic members of the order are known

1 Hopkins, p. 297. as Jati, ' the continent/ who hold no property, and never quit their dwellings except to beg for food. They carry a fan of goat's hair with which they remove every living creature from the path on which they tread, or the ground on which they sit. They wear a screen of cloth before their mouths, lest they should unwittingly inhale and destroy animal life. Their bodies and clothes are filthy and covered with vermin.

The lay brethren are known as Siavaka, * hearers/ a title which has given rise to the name Saraogi, by which they are commonly known in Northern India. The images of the saints, statues of black or white marble, are represented as nude, in contrast to the fully-dressed figures in Buddhist shrines ; but they pre- sent none of the indecencies which disfigure the modern Hindu temple. Jains choose for their sanctuaries wooded hills sur- rounded by lovely scenery; and in conformity with the retiring character of their creed, the older and most famous shrines are generally distant from the main centres of civilization. Such are the hill of Parasnath in Bengal, Palitana in Kathtewar, and Mount Abu, ' which rises with its gems of architecture like a jewelled island from the Rajputana plains. ? The piety of modern Jains in these days of toleration has adorned many of the larger mercantile cities with splendid temples, marvels of delicate carving and artistic decoration.

Jainism at present day

The numerical strength of the Jains is now i \ millions, and hows a tendency to decrease ; but this is perhaps more nominal than real, as there seems to be a growing disposition among them to describe themselves as Hindus. The line, in fact, which divides them from Hindus is narrow. They employ Brahmans in their domestic rites ; venerate the cow ; often worship in Hindu temples ; follow the Hindu law of inheritance, with the reservation that heirship is not dependent on the performance of funeral rites; are more than Hindu in the strictness of their caste exclusiveness ; permit connubium with Hindus ; visit Hindu places of pilgrimage. Their main difference from Hindus consists in their 'heretical' views regarding the sanctity of the Vedas, their omission of Hindu funeral rites, and their regard for special sacred places and for rites peculiar to the order. But there are Hindu sects which differ as widely from orthodox tenets without being excluded from Hinduism.

Sects and distribution of jains

Sects and The chief seats of Jain influence are the cities and trading dwtnbu- mar ts of Western India, and the order is largely recruited from Jains. the merchants of Gujarat and Mrwr, and cultivators in the Carnatic District of Belgaum. 'Their sudden disappearance from the population in the direction of Sind is somewhat remarkable, and so is the fact that there are no Jains among the indigenous inhabitants of Bengal, which includes Bihar, where the religion had its origin, and Orissa, where the caves of Udayagiri and Khandagiri bear witness to its popularity in the early centuries of our era. 1 The faith in Northern India commends itself to the mercantile classes, because trade is the only vocation in which the rule against taking animal life can be fully observed. Even the soil cannot be ploughed without the risk of killing a worm. In Western India three sects are recognized at the present day the Digambaras, who worship naked idols* and revere their Gurus, or spiritual teachers ; the Svetambaras, who dress their idols in robes, and adorn them in various ways; the Dhondiyas, who worship their Gurus, wear white apparel, and a strip of white cloth over their lips. These last never worship idols. The Digambaras assert that their women do not attain salvation, a view which the Svetam- baras reject. The lay members of the order are united by a close tie of mutual support, and their charity is boundless.

Brahmanism modified into hinduism

These movements in opposition to Brahmanism, combined Brahmanism with the extension of Aryan supremacy, which involved the absorption of increasing masses of the aboriginal races, led to Hinduism. a modification of the primitive belief. The result of this was the Hinduism of the present day, which with more or less variance of practice is now the creed of the vast majority of the people, and, like Christianity in mediaeval Europe, maintains a certain general conformity by the use of one sacred language, the veneration paid to holy places, and the predominance of a priesthood. It has hitherto been usual to date this move- ment within Brahmanism as late as the eleventh century of our era ; but it has recently been shown that the Puranic literature goes back to the sixth or eighth century.

Thus the reform of Brahmanism went on side by side with the growth of Buddhism and Jainism, and the three move- ments are but differing phases in the evolution of modern Hinduism. The means by which this evolution was accom- plished were in the case of Brahmanism twofold : first, the creation of a national ideal of worship ; secondly, the combina- tion of non-Aryan forms of belief with the older creed. The first movement finds its record in the epics, with some information to be gathered from the law literature, and a few sidelights from the inscriptions. The second is to be traced in the body of sacred writings known as the Puranas.

The epics

During the Epic period, which may be roughly defined lasting from about 500 to 50 B.C., or practically contempora- neous with the spread of Buddhism in its original form, two collections of popular legends were combined into the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. The first and more im- portant of these poems was composed probably in the fifth century B.C., and reached its final stage, after a series of redactions in the interest of one sect or the other, as a didactic compendium before the beginning of our era. The original Ramayana may have been completed at a time when, according to Professor Macdonell, * the epic kernel of the Mahabhrlrata had not yet assumed definite shape/ that is, before 500 B.C., while recent additions date from the second century JB.C. or later. The The Mahabharata brings together the western body of

The Mahabharata

Mahabharath- legends, that centring round the Brahman Holy Land in the Upper Ganges valley, and deals mainly with the Kaurava- Pandava war, in which some authorities see a tradition of the contest between two successive bodies of Aryan invaders. The transition from the earlier Brahmanism is indicated in various ways throughout the epic. We find excessive stress laid on Yoga, or asceticism, which, with the use of Mantras, or formulae, replaces sacrifice as a means of coercing the gods. Caste distinctions are now found clearly established.

The old Vedic deities have fallen from their high estate, and are now included among the Lokapalas, or * world-guardians.' Those that still retain some measure of dignity have lost their connexion with Nature, and have become anthropomorphous. New gods, like Kubera, god of riches, Dharma Vaivasvata, who took his title from an old name of Yama, and Kama, god of love, who in name is as old as the Atharvan, but was perhaps developed under the influence of Greek female slaves, take the place of the older gods, and with priests and the Pitri, or sainted dead, form the pantheon. The reverence paid to mountains, rivers, and holy trees reflects the older Nature-wor- ship, reinforced by beliefs adopted from the aboriginal tribes. Hanuman, the monkey god, who appears in both epics, has been supposed to be a guardian of the village and its crops ; more probably he is a loan from the local theriolatry. The reverence paid to the serpent, which, except as the dragon Ahi, does not occur in the Veda, is here associated with the NagSs, a semi-divine snake race. The people of the same name seem to have ruled many parts of Northern India in the prehistoric period.

The Ramayan

The second epic, the Ramayan, is less interesting from the relegion point of view t h an t fo Mahabharata, It does the same service to the eastern body of legends, those of Kosala and Magadha, as the earlier epic did for the western folk-lore. Here the veneration paid to saintly ascetics is farther intensified. It is generally supposed to mark the extension of Brahmanism into Southern India, but is more probably an amplification of a Vedic Nature-myth.

Sivaism and vaishnavism

The effect of these epics was to form a gallery of heroic personages drawn from local tradition, who have been revered by Hindus of succeeding times. Thus, in lieu of vague epics, abstractions and the shadowy Vedic gods, now in a state of decadence, the Mahabharata provides a series of heroic men and women the knightly Pandavas and their common spouse, Draupadi, as in the Ramayana Rama and Slta have formed models of the life of holiness to later generations. To this day the latter epic, transmuted into the old Eastern Hindi of Northern India by the genius of Tulsi Das (died 1624 A. D.), is the Vaishnava Bible, and episodes from it form the subject of the most popular village drama.

It is much more difficult to trace the stages of the evolution Sivaism which led to the sectarian worship of Siva and Vishnu. Vishnu in the Rig-veda plays only a subordinate part. Though included in the solar cultus, he is less frequently invoked than his brother gods, Surya and Pushan. In the Grihya Sutras he is adored in connexion with Vak, or the Logos ; Manu names him only once. In the Mnhabharata Vishnu and Siva are separate gods, but each in turn is identified with the All-God, and consequently each represents the other.

Siva, again, is the natural descendant of the Vedic Rudra combined with Pushan ; the name Siva, * the auspicious one/ was apparently assigned to him through a feeling of euphemism, to veil the more ruthless side of his personality. The Greek Megasthenes (306-298 B. c.) identifies him with Dionysos, and speaks of him as a god worshipped in the mountains. About the end of the first century of our era, as recorded in the Periplus, the cult of his consort, Durga, had reached and given a name to Cape Comorin.

The records of the Buddhist pilgrims show that he wds worshipped in Northern India five centuiies later. In his earliest form, then, the Aryan origin of Siva is undoubted, and this is recognized by the Brahmans of to-day, who specially worship him. But this does not imply that in his later forms non-Aryan elements may not have been added to his cultus. By some this non-Aryan side of his wor- ship has been connected with the Deccan ; by others with the lower slopes of the Himalayas. Dr. Muir comes to the con- clusion that, while there are not sufficient grounds for regarding the non-Aryan tribes of Southern India as specially devoted to his worship, his cultus may have owed its coarser elements to the Dravidian stock common to the whole Peninsula.

The elevation of Brahma, the third member of the triad, to the position of chief of the gods is characteristic of the Epic period ; but even here, to quote Dr. Hopkins ', ' his character is that of a shadowy, fatherly, beneficent adviser to the gods, his children ; all his activity is due to Vishnu. Brahma is in his place merely because to the preceding age he was the highest god ; for the epic regards Creator, Prajapati, Brahma as synonymous.' But he is already in process of subordination to the sectarian gods.

This process has continued until, in modern times, the leader of the triad has become a roi faineant, and only four shrines, those of Pushkar in Rajputana, Khed Brahma in the State of Idar, Dudahi in Bundelkhand, and Kodakkal in Malabar, are known to be specially devoted to his worship. The view of modern Hinduism is that his functions are interchangeable with those of Vishnu and Siva, either of whom may be worshipped as his representative. Vishnnand To the Hindu of to-day Vishnu and Siva form the two poles of his religion. Siva, to use the words of Sir A. Lyall 2 ,

• represents the earliest and universal impression of Nature

npon man the impression of endless and pitiless change.

He is the destroyer and rebuilder of various forms of life ; he has charge of the whole circle of animated creation, the in- cessant round of birth and death in which all Nature eternally revolves. His attributes are indicated by symbols emblematic of death and man's desire/ These symbols represent the male and female creative energy, an idea perhaps borrowed from the non-Aryan races, and appearing already well estab- lished in the Mahabharata. Less human and more mystical than Vishnu, anthropomorphic image-worship has little place in his cultus. Manifold are the forms in which he manifests himself. He is the typical Yogi, or self-mortifier, the philoso- pher and sage, the wild and jovial mountaineer, surrounded by a train of dancing revellers. How much of this is the result of syncretism it is difficult to say ; but his worship was obviously well adapted to attract two very different classes of votaries the Brahman philosopher, who sees in him the All-God, from whom the universe is evolved ; and the villager, who associates him with the mysteries of reproduction.

Hence, as Visvesvara, ' Lord of the Universe/ his plain, uncarved lingam is the chief object of worship at Benares, the head- quarters of Brahman orthodoxy, and few of the smallest villages lack a modest shrine erected in his honour. Possibly in the latter case the preference for his worship is due to its cheap- ness. He needs none of the gorgeous ceremonial which is provided for Vishnu. A few flowers, an oblation of water, are all that his worshipper needs to dedicate.

The extension of sivaism

The extension of Sivaism was the work of two great mission- The ary preachers. The first was Kumarila Bhatta, a Brahman of extension Bihar, who is said to have instigated the persecution of Buddh- ists and Jains in Southern India. He taught the latter Mimansa philosophy, and his mantle fell on his more famous disciple, Sankaracharya, who in the eighth century moulded the tenets of the Mimansa into its final form. The result of his teaching was the foundation of the Smarta sect of Brahmans, while among the lower classes he popularized the worship of Siva. To him is attributed the foundation of monasteries from Sringeri in Mysore to Badrmath in Kumaun, which last ij still served by Namburi Brahman priests from Malabar. Much of his life was spent in wandering along the hill country from Kashmir to Nepal, where he reorganized the temple services in the interest of his sect. His missionary work largely con- tributed to the downfall of Buddhism in Northern India, and the Saivas have deified him as an incarnation of Siva himself.

The saiva sects

The Saivas represent the conservative force in the history The Saiva of Hinduism. It was from their struggles with Buddhism in sects - the centre and south of the Peninsula that the order of the SannyasI ascetics, who took their title from one of the stages (dsrama) in the life of a Brahman, arose. In the same way, the contest between the Sannyasis and the innovating Bhagats of Northern India gave rise to the Jogi order. Saivism has blossomed out into sects with less luxuriance than Vaishnavism. Some of those which have been formed exhibit asceticism in its highest and most repulsive form. Such, for instance, are the loathsome Aghoris, eaters of filth and of corpses ; the Urdhvabahus, who extend the arms over the head till the muscles wither from non-use; the Akasamukhins, who keep the neck bent back looking up to the sky ; the Kapalikas, who use a human skull for a drinking-cup.

Two of the Saiva sects, the Smartas and the Lingayats, The deserve special mention. The Smartas, ' those who follow Smartas. tradition (smriti)J are Brahmans of the South Deccan and Madras. Though they refer their origin to the teaching of the Saiva missionary, SankarachSrya, they are not exclusively Saivite in their beliefs. They teach the identity of man's spirit with the One Spirit (Atman, Brahma), which is cognizable only through meditation. They recognize the orthodox triad Brahma, Vishnu, Siva as coequal manifestations of the one Eternal Spirit, and destined ultimately to be reabsorbed into this Spirit. They thus represent the highest form of BrShmanic pantheism. Brahmanism in Southern India has always claimed to preserve a higher standard of orthodoxy than that which prevails in other parts of the country.

Its activity is shown by the fact that the reforming mission of Sa*ikar5charya had its origin there, and at the present day the Brahman of Madras exercises an influence much greater than that of his brethren in the North. The explanation of this is that the South was not involved in the struggle with the Kshattriyas and Buddhism, and was beyond the reach of the persecution which accompanied the early Muslim invasions.

The lingayats

On a much lower level are the Lingayats, wearers of the lingam or phallus. 7 The founder of the sect was Basava, the southern form of the Sanskrit Vrishabha, a title of Nandi, the bull on which Siva rides. He was a Brahman of Bijapur, and prime minister of Bijjala, one of the Kalachurya kings of KalySni (circa 1145-67 A.D.). The story of his career is over- laid with a mass of legend, the LingSyat account being embodied in the Basava Purana, while the Jain narrative corv- tained in the Bijjalar^ya Charita is very different. From the Lingayat account it would seem that Basava and his nephew took advantage of their official position to persecute the Jains and other enemies of the new faith. But Bijjala himself was a Jain, and a reaction occurred, which culminated in the death or abdication of the king and the murder of Basava.

Vishnu and vaishnavisim

The sect is chiefly found in the Southern Deccan, where they call themselves Vira-Saivas, 'brave or fierce Saivas/ but are popularly known as Lingayats or Lingavants. The chief characteristics of the sect in its early days were adoration of the lingam and of Nandi, Siva's bull, and disbelief in the trans- migration of the soul. They rejected infant marriage, and permitted widows to remarry. Their chief seat is in the Kanarese country, and it is mainly due to their influence that this powerful and polished language has been preserved. The main body of the community, who are initiated by what is known as the 'eightfold sacrament' (ashtavarna), are known as Panchamsalis, descendants of the original Brahman converts. To these has been added a group of later converts.

At the outset caste distinctions were abolished, but, as is so often the case with religious movements of this kind, a reaction set in. The original, or high-caste section, introduced a more elaborate form of worship, framed on the Brahmanic model. The new converts were forced to take a lower place, and only the Jangamas, or priests, being a privileged class, deigned to share their food. This schism, which began at the close of the seventeenth century, has continued, until at the last Census the higher group claimed to be recorded as Vira-Saiva Brah- mans, and proposed that the others should be placed in three classes according as they sprang from castes ranking as Kshattriyas, Vaisyas, or Sudras.

According to the view of most foreign students of Hinduism Vishnu

a sharp line is to be drawn between the beliefs of the Saiva and . Valsh '

. n a vism.

and Vaishnava sectarians. But Hinduism is wonderfully

eclectic, and the two sects are regarded as complementary, rather than antagonistic. While Siva, the god of destruction and reproduction, is associated with many practices at once grotesque and repellent, the faith of the worshippers of Vishnu is more human, impersonating the ' higher evolution/ the up- ward tendency of the human spirit. It leads the believer back to the graceful worship of the early gods, while it has included in its pantheon the forms of national heroes, who live among men, and furnish an ideal of manliness, beauty, and the delights of love. In his highest form Vishnu is in a state of repose, not activity, which is the note of Saiva beliefs. He occasionally deigns to revisit the earth in human or animal shape by a succession of Avataras or incarnations. This theory of successive divine embodiments is one of the most effective doctrines of the later Hinduism. In it the eclecticism and adaptability of the faith are most fully realized. In the animal incarnations we may see either an indication of the absorption of the totemistic or beast gods of the lower races, or, from the esoteric point of view, the pantheistic idea of the divine spirit immanent in all the forms of creation. In the deification of heroes we have a development of one of the main principles of the Hindu renaissance, which first begins to show itself in the Mahabharata.

The gods of vaishnavisim

The forms of Vishnu are manifold. In Travancore, where The gods he is the state deity, he is worshipped as Padmanabha, ' he of Y ais k- from whose navel springs the lotus/ But, as popular gods, his most important incarnations are Krishna and Rama.

Krishna

Both Krishna and Rama may, in their earliest conception, Krishna. be embodiments of local deities of the herd or cornfield, but to the Hindu they are glorified men, who once lived on earth. Krishna, whose name first appears in one of the Upanishads as a scholar, is a prominent personage in the Mahabharata, but always invested with some degree of mysticism. The head -quarters of his cult are at Muttra, on the upper Jumna, which, as shown by a recent important discovery of inscriptions, was an early seat of Jainism. The suggestion has been made that there was some alliance between the two faiths, and that one cause of the immunity of Jainism from persecu- tion in Western India was the protection it received from the new Vaishnavism. But this is improbable. Krishna, in the early form of his cult, may be regarded as the local god of some Rajput clan settled near the Jumna ; and his titles, Govinda and Gopala, ' the herdsman/ suggest a connexion of his worship with that of a god of flocks and herds. He is also the hero of the Panda va tribe, who seem to have been new- comers, opponents of the orthodox Brahmanism of the Holy Land. The mention of polyandry among them in the case of Draupadi has been supposed to connect them with the Hima- layas, where this custom still prevails. In the cult of Krishna we have that form of Vaishnavism which, by its luxurious ceremonial and lax standard of morality, shares with Jainism the respect of the moneyed middle class.

Rama

In Rama, the god of the orthodox Brahman, there is no erotic suggestion. He, like Krishna, seems to have been a local Rajput hero of Kosala, and in his personality are embodied the legends and folk-lore of the east country. Here, in the birthplace of Buddhism, his cult arose, and it is clear that it was largely indebted to the older faith. Or perhaps it might be a more correct statement of the case to say that both alike were dependent upon the earlier Brahmanic tradi- tion. At any rate Vaishnavism, as it appears in the cult of Rama, preserves the kindliness and charity of Buddhism, as well as its tenderness for animal life.

The growth of vaishnavism

The foundations of the Vaishnava beliefs were laid in the growth of vishnu Purana, a work which was formerly supposed to date vaishnavisim. from the eleventh century, but has now been proved to be some five centuries older. We thus naturally find in it much of the old caste exclusiveness, which the Institutes of Manu, representing probably the conditions of the second century, most fully display. There is in the Purana one God, but he is the God of the Brahman, and the writer does not dream of the message of salvation being extended to the lower races.

The popularization of the creed was the work of a line of The reformers, of whom the first was Ramanuja, a South Indian Vais reformers. Brahman, who is said to have lived between 1017 and 1137 A. D. In the case of Vaishnavism, as with Saivism, the inspiration for reform came from the south. Ramanuja, in opposition to Sankaracharya, maintained that there was one supreme Spirit; that individual beings are separate spirits, and the universe non-Spirit. Fifth in succession to him was Ramanand, who lived during the fourteenth century, and was the missionary of popular Vaishnavism in Northern India. He preached the worship of Vishnu under the form of Rama, either singly, or conjointly ^ith his consort, Sita. But his chief innovation was the introduction of low-caste disciples into the commu- nion.

One of his twelve disciples was Kablr (1380-1420 A.D.), Kablr and who carried on and extended the work of his master. His teaching is specially remarkable inasmuch as in later times it inspired the founders of Sikhism. Its chief note is to link Hinduism with Islam. A weaver by caste, Kablr taught the spiritual equality of all men. All or Rama, said he, are only different names for the same God.

So we are told that on his death both Hindus and Musalmans claimed his corpse. But when they raised the shroud they found nothing but a heap of flowers. The Hindus took half and cremated them at Benares ; the Muslims buried the other half near Gorakhpur. Kablr, in accepting the equality of all men before the Supreme, added to his doctrine the spiritual application, that difference in caste, rank, or religion, the changes and chances of this mortal life, are but Maya, or Illusion. Emancipation and peace are to be gained by recognizing the Divine Spirit under these manifold illusions. The way to happiness is not by formula or sacrifice, but by fervent faith (bhakti} and meditation on the Godhead.

A large sect, known to the present day as Kabirpanthis, follow his teaching. Their special principle is the duty of obeying the Guru, or spiritual guide, though at the same time Kablr recognized freedom of individual judgement. The use of meat and liquor and the worship of idols were prohibited. But nowadays practice lags behind precept, and many members are said to show a tendency to revert to idolatry. It is perhaps more as a writer than as a religious reformer that Kablr has left his mark on the beliefs of Northern India. His apo- phthegms are ever on the lips of the educated man, whether Hindu or Musalman, and have been largely incorporated into the Granth or Sikh Scripture.