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 518

Mah[=a]tmaism in an early Buddhistic tract, and Barth, p. 213, suggests a Buddhistic origin for the K[ra]naph[=a]ts. See also Holtzmann, loc. cit. The deistic Yogis of Gorakhn[=a]th's sect are respectable enough (see an account of some of this sort in the Dabist[=a]n, II. 6), but they are of Buddhistic origin. The K[=a]naph[=a]ts of Kutch (Danodhar) were once a celibate brotherhood. JRAS. 1839, p. 268.]
[Footnote 41: See JAOS. xi. 272. To ascribe this verse to the 'older Manu' would be a grave slip on the part of a Sanskrit scholar.)
[Footnote 42: i. 1. 76.]
[Footnote 43: The Dabist[=a)n, without any animus, reports of the Ç[ra]ktas of the seventeenth century that "Çiva is, in their opinion, with little exception, the highest of the deities" (II. 7). Williams calls Ç[ra]ktaism "a mere offshoot of Çivaism" Religious Thought and Life, p. 184.]
[Footnote 44: The Dabist[=a]n rather assumes as a matter of course that a body of Yogis would kill and eat a boy of the Mohammedan faith (II. 12); but here the author may be prejudiced.]
[Footnote 45: The present sect of this name consists only of a few miserable mendicants, particularly savage and filthy (Wilson).]
[Footnote 46: All of them now represent Çakti, the female principle. Lingaworship has also its counterpart, Bhaga-worship (here Yoni), perhaps represented by the altar itself. Compare the Dabist[=a]n, II. 7, on the Çivaite interpretation of the Mohammedan altar. To Durga human beings were always sacrificed. After mentioning a gold idol of Durg[=a] (to whom men were sacrificed yearly), the author adds: "Even now they sacrifice in every village of the Kohistan of Nandapur and the country adjacent, a man of good family" (ib.). Durg[=a] {above, p. 416) is Vishnu's sister.]