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GENERAL SURVEY AND CONCLUSIONS
By this time the estrangement between those who followed the word of the Tirthamkara in its plain undisguised form, and the esotericists themselves, fos. tered as it was, on the part of the latter, to keep up appearances before their vulgar clientele, had become quite pronounced. Matters went on like this till at last the branch finally set itself up in opposition to the Tree, and is now vociferously engaged in denying its relationship with the Source, calling it now atheistic, now indefinite, now anti-Dharma (the destroyer of Dharma). The "ast-comers" in our enumeration of religions are those who have come either as reformers of existing creeds or who have endeavoured to strike out into paths that run parallel to the ancient tracks but little. They have had no revelation, and their knowledge is derived mostly from the misunderstood word of some ancient scripture or other to which they have attached themselves. In short, they may be said to bave just rushed up to the platform through the half-lit passage of Textual Literalism, and are now waxing eloquent on their notions concerning the shadows they passed by in that dim uncanny light. Here and there we, no doubt, come across gleams of real insight in some of their works; but that is only where a reformer lingered a bit over some particular shadow in the course of his rush through the region of mythology and myth.
To turn now to the relation of the different creeds among themselves, Religion may be described as a
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