Great Indian Religion

Author(s): G T Bettany
Publisher: Ward Lock Bowden and Co

Page 78

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MODERN HINDUISM.
tent, illimitable, free from imperfection. There are but a few worshippers of Brahman or Brahma alone. As creator he is believed to have finished his work, and there is now only one temple to him, at Pushkara in Ajmir. Ward, in 1818, wrote: “The Brahmans in their morning and evening worship repeat an incantation containing a description of the image of Brahma; at noon they present to him a single flower; at the time of burntoffering, ghee is presented to him. In the month of Magh, at the full moon, an earthen image of him is worshipped, with that of Siva on his right hand and Vishnu on his left."
The Smartas of Southern India are a considerable sect who follow the philosophic teaching of Sankara. There
montes are numerous religious houses connected with The Smartas.
can this sect, acknowledging the headship of the monastery of Sringiri, in the western Mysore hills; and the chief priest of the sect, the head of this monastery, is specially acknowledged by all Sivaite worshippers, who regard Sankara as one of the incarnations of Siva.
“The worship of Vishnu," says Sir W. W. Hunter, "in one phase or another, is the religion of the bulk of the
Vishnu middle classes; with its roots deep down in worship. beautiful forms of non-Aryan nature-worship, and its top sending forth branches among the most refined Brahmans and literary sects. It is a religion in all things graceful. Its gods are heroes or bright friendly beings, who walk and converse with men. Its legends breathe an almost Hellenic beauty.” This is the lofty position assigned to Vishnuism by one of the most learned and most impartial students-a very different opinion from that which regards the car of Juggernaut as the representative of all that is vile.
The doctrines of modern Hinduism, in their learned aspect, are contained in the Puranas (in Sanskrit), a
The series of eighteen treatises, in which various Puranas. Brahmans expound, in lengthy dialogues, the supremacy of Vishnu or Siva. The chief of them is the Vishnu Purana, dating from the eleventh century, but containing, as the word "purana” signifies, ancient