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RELIGIOUS SECTS
ders of the system to acquit them of being immediately the authors of this folly. The earliest works inculcate, no doubt, extreme reverence for the teacher, but not divine worship; they direct the disciple to look upon his Guru as his second father, not as his God: there is great reason to suppose, that the prevailing practice is not of very remote date, and that it originates chiefly with the Sri Bhágavat: it is also falling into some disrepute, and as we shall presently see, a whole division of even CHAITANYA's followers have discarded this part of the system.
Liberation from future terrestrial existence is the object of every form of Hindu worship. The prevailing notion of the means of such emancipation is the reunion of the spiritual man with that primitive spirit, which communicates its individual portions to all nature, and which receives them, when duly purified, again into its essence. On this head, however, the followers of CHAITANYA, in common with most of the Vaishnava sects, do not seem to have adopted the Vedánta notions; and, although some admit the Sáyujya, or identification with the deity, as one division of Mukti, others are disposed to exclude it, and none acknowledge its pre-eminence. Their Moksha is of two kinds: one, perpetual residence in Svarga, or Paradise, with possession of the divine attributes of supreme power, &c. and the other, elevation to Vaikuntha -the heaven of VISHŃU, which is free from the influence of Máyá, and above the regions of the Avatárs, and where they enjoy one or all of the relations to
