Essays Lectures on Religion of Hindu Vol 01

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

Page 20

4
RELIGIOUS SECTS
who presumed to dispute that supremacy: in this conflict the worship of BRAHMA has disappeared', as well as, indeed, that of the whole pantheon, except VISHŃU, SIVA and SAKTI, or their modifications; with respect to the two former, in fact, the representatives have borne away the palm from the prototypes, and KRISHNA, RÁMA, or the Linga, are almost the only forms
From even looking at VISHNU, the wrath of SIVA is kindled, and from his wrath, we fall assuredly into a horrible hell; let not, therefore, the name of VISHNU ever be pronounced.
The same work is, however, cited by the VAISHNAVAS, for a very opposite doctrine.
वासुदेवं परित्यज्य यो ऽन्यदेवमुपासते । तृषितो जाह्नवीतीरे कूपं खनति दुर्मतिः ॥
He who abandons VASUDEVA and worships any other god, is like the fool, who being thirsty, sinks a well in the bank of the Ganges.
The principle goes still further, and those who are inimical to the followers of a Deity, are stigmatised as his personal foes -thus in the Ádi Purána, VISIINU says:
मद्भक्तो वल्लभो यस्य स एव मम वल्लभः । तत्परो वल्लभो नास्ति सत्यं सत्यं धनञ्जय ॥
He to whom my votary is a friend, is my friend-he who is opposed to him, is no friend of mine-be assured, Dhananjaya, of this.
1 SIVA himself, in the form of KALA BHAIRAVA, tore off BRAHIMA's fifth head, for presuming to say, that he was BRAHIMA, the eternal and omnipotent cause of the world, and even the creator of SIVA, notwithstanding the four VEDAS and the personified Omkára, had all given evidence, that this great, true and indescribable deity was SIVA himself. The whole story occurs in the Kási Khand [c. 31] of the Skanda Purána, and its real signification is sufficiently obvious.