Essays Lectures on Religion of Hindu Vol 01

Author(s): H H Wilson
Publisher: Trubner and Company London

Page 18

RELIGIOUS SECTS
which have their Karma Kända and Jnána Kända, or Ritual and Theology.
The worship of the populace being addressed to different divinities, the followers of the several gods naturally separated into different associations, and the adorers of BrahMÁ, VISHŇU, and Siva or other phantoms of their faith, became distinct and insulated bodies, in the general aggregate: the conflict of opinion on subjects, on which human reason has never yet agreed, led to similar differences in the philosophical class, and resolved itself into the several Darsanas, or schools of philosophy.
It may be supposed, that some time elapsed before the practical worship of any deity was more than a simple preference, or involved the assertion of the supremacy of the object of its adoration, to the degradation or exclusion of the other gods': in like manner also, the conflicting opinions were matters rather of curiosity than faith, and were neither regarded as subversive of each other, nor as incompatible with the public worship: and hence, notwithstanding the sources of difference that existed in the parts, the unity of the whole remained undisturbed: in this condition, indeed, the apparent mass of the
1 One division of some antiquity is the preferential appropriation of the four chief divinities to the four original casts; thus Siva is the Adidera of the Brahmans, VishŃU of the Kshattriyas, BRAHMÁ of the Taisyas, and GAŃEŚA of the Súdras:
विप्राणां दैवतं शम्भुः क्षत्रियाणां तु माधवः । वैश्यानां तु भवेद्बह्मा शूद्राणां गणनायकः ॥ इति मनुः ॥