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RELIGIOUS SECTS
unnecessary here to repeat what there has been previous occasion to notice with respect to the extravagant obedience to be paid by some sectarians to the Guru, whose favour is declared to be of much more importance than that of the god whom he represents.
Another peculiarity in the modern systems which has been adverted to in the preceding pages is the paramount value of Bhakti — faith-implicit reliance on the favour of the Deity worshipped. This is a substitute for all religious or moral acts, and an expiation for every crime. Now, in the Vedas, two branches are distinctly marked, the practical and speculative. The former consists of prayers and rules for oblations to any or all of the gods—but especially to India and AGNI, the rulers of the firmament and of fire, for positive worldly goods, health, posterity and affluence. The latter is the investigation of matter and spirit, leading to detachment from worldly feelings and interests, and final liberation from bodily existence. The first is intended for the bulk of mankind, the second for philosophers and ascetics. There is not a word of faith, of implicit belief or passionate devotion in all this, and they seem to have been as little essential to the primitive Hindu worship as they were to the religious systems of Greece and Rome. Bhakti is an invention, and apparently a modern one*, of the
Yamala, Gupta Sadhana Tantra, Vrihan Nila Tantra, and others, are quoted in the Pránatoshani, fol. 49–35.]
* [See, however, Burnouf, Bhág. Pur. 1, p. CXI. Lassen, Ind. Alt, II, 1096 #f.]
