Handbook of History of Religions

SR No.: 007634
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Edward Washburn
Publisher: Sanmati Tirth Prakashan Pune
Total Pages: 678
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 2 MB

Page 517

[Footnote 36: The Kashmeer Çivaites claim Çankara as their teacher. The sect of Basava started in the south, Mysore. They have some trashy literature (legends, etc.) which they dignify by the name of Pur[ra]nas. Bühler has given an account of the Kashmeer school. For further details see Barth, pp. 184, 206.]
[Footnote 37: Brahmanism and Hinduism, p.62 ff. To this and to the same author's Thought and Life, we are indebted for many facts concerning the sects as they appear to-day, though much in these books is said after Wilson or other scholars, whose work is now common property, and calls for no further acknowledgment.]
[Footnote 38: It is, perhaps, necessary to keep repeating that Hindu monotheism does not exclude other gods which, at the hands of the one god, are reduced to sprites, angels, demons, etc. But it ought not to be necessary to insist on this, for an American monotheist that believes in angels and devils is the same sort of monotheist. The Hindu calls the angels 'gods' or 'divinities, but they are only attendant hosts of the One.]
[Footnote 39: Some of the Civaite sects are, indeed, Buddhistic in origin, a fact which raises the question whether Buddhism, instead of disappearing from India, was not simply absorbed; much as Unitarianism in New England has spent its vitality in modifying the orthodox creed. Thus the karma of Buddhism may still be working in the person of some modern Hindu sects. See the next note below.]
[Footnote 40: Most of the Yogi jugglers are Çivaites (when they are not Buddhistic), and to-day they share with the (Mohammedan) fakirs the honor of being not only ascetics but knaves. The juggler Yogi is, however, a figure of respectable antiquity. The magical tricks practiced on the epic heroes are doubtless a reflex of the current mesmerism, which deceives so cleverly to-day. We have shown above a Buddhistic strain of