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INDIA (RELIGIONS AND RELIGIOUS LITERATURE) 229 Brahmans. The other castes were also multi- plied. Sects which reject the system of castes, as the Lingaites of Mahratta, constitute each a caste of their own. The gods also have enor- mously increased in numbers, and they are said to he as many as 330 millions, since it seemed but just that the heavens should be as largely peopled as the earth. The Vedanta phi- losophy attained the most influential position among the Hindoo systems, and effected a union with Sivaism, while the Vishnuites embraced the deistic Sankhya. The most renowned phi- losopher was ankaracharya, who lived in the 8th century. He was a Brahman of the Nam- buri tribe, then dominant in Travancore. He recognized, instead of the original four, 72 castes, and founded numerous convents, dis- puted considerably with the Jains and Vishnu- ites, and is said to have died in the Himalaya at the age of 32. He revived the Vedanta philos- ophy, applied it against Buddhism, and wrote among others the Bhashyas, which are commen- taries on the Vedas, but more directly on the Sutras. The Vishnuites number among their celebrated philosophers Ramanuja of the 12th, and Madhvacharya of the 14th century; but their fame is not equal to that of Qankarficharya. The Vishnuite Vallabhacharya founded in the 16th century the voluptuous Krishna-shepherd worship, which places Krishna over Vishnu himself. Another enthusiastic Krishna worship was instituted about the same time by Chai- tanya in Bengal. In the 12th century arose in the Mahratta country a new form of Sivaism. Basava, its founder, formed monkish brother- hoods in imitation of Buddhism, but he was a bitter enemy to the Buddhists, as represented by the Jains. This sect is the Jangama Lingaism, which uses the Canarese language as its sacred tongue. The akta denomination gives ado- ration not to any of the three great gods them- selves, but only to their wives, and especially to the spouse of Siva, and is very sensual in worship. Remnants of the ancient Sudra re- ligion are still to be found in Bengal, and they bear a strong resemblance to the magic worship of savage tribes. Islamism made con- siderable progress in the mean time, and in 1871 a third of the population of Bengal were Mohammedans. A mixture of Hindooism and Islamism is represented by the religion of the Sikhs, and another of Buddhism and Brah- manisin by that of the Jains. The most im- portant modern religious works known to Eu- ropeans are the following. After the Puranas appeared 18 Upapur&nas of similar contents. Each temple of importance has its own local Purana, narrating the story of the god and his manifestations in that place, and often con- taining items of valuable historic information. The Tantras are productions in which Siva is represented as conversing with Durga; they are the magic books of the faktas. The most important work written in Tamil is Tiruvallu- ver's Kural, a collection of sayings of a purely ethical character. The Basava Puranas of the sect of Lingaites are valuable works for the history of Hindoo sects. Prominent among the recent developments of the Brahmanical religion stands the idea of the trinity. It was formerly supposed by European scholars that the Trimurti, or trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, was a primitive doctrine and the basis of the Indian religion ; but it is evident- ly quite a modern conception. This trinity is represented by an image of a body with three heads cut out of a single block of stone. Theoretically, Brahma is the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Siva the destroyer; but no cult assigns either temple or feast to the Trimurti, and it would be greatly unlike the popular conception of Siva to consider him a god of destruction. It would be better, how- ever, to examine first the place which Vishnu occupies in the popular mind. Vishnu pushed Indra back into oblivion. Ten avatars are commonly assigned to him, and they follow each other in an increasing scale of perfection. The first three are incarnations of animals : fish, tortoise, and boar. The fourth is the Manu lion. The human avatars begin with the fifth : first a dwarf, then a hero, and then the still more exalted persons of a Ramachandra and a Krishna. It is usual to name also an in- carnation of Buddha as a concession to Buddh- ism, but several writings name other forms in which Vishnu appeared, and expect the god finally to come himself. The revelation of the future advent of Vishnu predicts that at a time when the highest age of man will be only 23 years, a portion of the eternal godhead will be born in the village Sambhala to the Brahman family of Vishnuyaca. He shall be called Kalki, and possess eight superhuman powers. He shall destroy all Mlechas, Dasyus, and unjust persons, and shall restore righteousness upon earth. The spirits of those who are still alive at the end of the Kali-yuga life shall be changed into forms transparent as crystal, and shall produce a race willing to obey the laws of Krita-yuga, who shall be the fathers of a new humanity. Krita-yuga shall come again when sun and moon have disappeared in the moon house Tishya, near the planet Brihaspati or Jupiter. This will occur at the end of 360,000 human years or 1,200 years of the gods, count- ing from the death of Krishna. The person of Siva was too lofty and powerful to be satisfied like Vishnu to appear as a being of this world. As Vishnu could not, however, be allowed to be considered the only one capable of avatars, it was taught that Siva also occasionally dwelt among men, but only as the incorporation of some attribute of himself. When Narade, the messenger of the gods, reported to Siva that his worship was falling off upon earth, Siva sent only Nandikecvara, the bull upon which he rides. The Lingaites also have in their Puranas legends of such descents of divine at- tributes and symbols among them. One of them gives a most wondrous origin to their teacher Basava. The Y6gins or Gosain, com-