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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES
27
€.8, Ahmed ibni Yunus, Abu Moslem of Khorasan (vide Philosophy of Islam, p. 27) openly subscribed to the doctrine. Meretorious deeds in Islam include prayer, fasting, pilgrimage and purification generally.
Brahmanism by which term I mean later Hindu-- ism is twofold ;(1) Puranicisen i. e., the worshipping of Puranic gods, and (2) Yajna-ism, the sacrificial cult. Puranic deities are a legion numerically, but the most important ones among them are Brahmâ, Vishnu, Shiva and Krisnna. It is believed that all kinds of boons can be obtained from the gods by their worship. The sacrificial cult, or Vajna-ism, as I have termed it, is the sacrificing of living beings to propitiate supernal powers in favour of the sacrificer, Human beings, too, it is certain, used to be sacrificed in the past on certain occa. sions, and the diabolical practice had survived in the form of the immolation of little children to the spirits of rivers, etc., which has only been put a stop to in recent times. The most widely-practised sacrifices were those of the ram, the bull and the he-goat, which seem to have been universally selected by all sorts of sacrifi. cial cults, In India gomedha and ashvamedha, that is, respectively, the cow and the horse sacrifice, were also practised in ancient times, but they have since been abandoned, and the former has now become even one of the chief causes of contention and quarrel between Hindus and Mahomedans.
Mysticism, Yaga-ism, Shakti-ism and Occultism, are all terms which more or less convey the same idea,
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