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character, in their uncompromising advocacy of the pre-eminence of some one deity, or of some one of his manifestations, in the boldness with which they assert his pantheistic presence, in the importance they attach to particular observances, as fasting on the 8th, 11th, and 14th days of each half month, in the holiness with which they invest particular localities, in the tone and spirit of their prayers and hymns, and in the numerous, and almost always frivolous, and insipid, and immoral legends, which they have grafted upon the more fanciful, dignified, and significant inventions of antiquity, they betray most glaringly the purposes for which they were posed, the dissemination of new articles of faith, the currency of new gods. The Hindus are not much disposed to scrutinize with critical suspicion the history of a composition reputed sacred; yet even they have been unable to avoid a controversy amongst themselves respecting the authenticity of the most popular of all the Puránas, the Bhagavata"; and many learned Brahmans maintain that it is the work of an uninspired writer, a celebrated grammarian, named Vopadeva, who flourished in the twelfth century. This is strenuously denied by those with whom it is the textbook for their worship of the infant Krishna; but there is no doubt of the fact. There is equally little doubt that another of these works, the Brahma Vaivartta Purána, is still more modern. It is dedicated
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OF THE HINDUS.
[Burnouf, Bhagav. Pur., I., p. LIII ff.]
