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The Occidental and Oriental conceptions of the trinity are, however, not identical. For in India the trinity, from the Vishnuite point of view, is an amalgamation of Civa and Brahm[=a] with Vishnu, irrespective of the question whether Vishnu be manifest in Krishna or not; while the Christian trinity amalgamates the form that corresponds to Vishnu with the one that corresponds to Krishna.[70] To the orthodox Brahman, on the other hand, as Williams has very well put it, Krishna is an incarnation of Vishnu, who is himself only an incarnation, that is, a form, of God.
Having now explained the two principal divisions of the modern sects, we can lead the reader into the church of Vishnu. It is a church of two great parties, each being variously subdivided. Of these two parties the Krishnaites are intellectually the weaker, and hence numerically the stronger. All Krishnaites, of course, identify the man-god Krishna with Vishnu, and their sub-sects revert to various teachers, of whom the larger number are of comparatively recent date, although as a body the Krishnaites may claim an antiquity as great, if not greater, than that of the Ramaites.
But the latter party, in their various sub-sects, all claim as their founder either R[=a]m[=a]nuja himself or one of his followers; and since, if the claim be granted, the R[ra]
ma sects do but continue his work, we shall begin by following out the result of his teaching as it was interpreted by his disciples; especially since the Krishnaites have left to the Ramaites most of the philosophizing of the church, and devoted themselves more exclusively to the moralities and immoralities of their more practical religion. As a matter of fact, the Ramaites to-day are less religious than philosophical, while in the case of the Krishnaites, with some reservations, the contrary may be said to be the case.
THE RAMAITES.
Since the chief characteristic of growth among Hindu sectaries is a sort of segmentation, like that which conditions the development of amoebas and other lower organisms, it is a forgone conclusion that the Ramaites, having formed one body apart from the Krishnaites, will immediately split up again into smaller segments. It is also a
