undred years, resembles a stupendous far-extended building,
or series of buildings, which is still receiving additions, while
portions have crumbled and are crumbling into ruin. Every conceivable
style of architecture, from that of the stately palace to the meanest
hut, is comprehended in it. On a portion of the structure here or there
the eye may rest with pleasure; but as a whole it is an unsightly,
almost monstrous, pile. Or, dismissing figures, we must describe it as
the most extraordinary creation which the world has seen. A jumble of
all things; polytheistic pantheism; much of Buddhism; something
apparently of Christianity, but terribly disfigured; a science wholly
outrageous; shreds of history twisted into wild mythology; the bold
poetry of the older books understood as literal prose; any local deity,
any demon of the aborigines, however hideous, identified with some
accredited Hindu divinity; any custom, however repugnant to common sense
or common decency, accepted and explained--in a word, later Hinduism has
been omnivorous; it has partially absorbed and assimilated every system
of belief, every form of worship, with which it has come in contact.
Only to one or two things has it remained inflexibly true. It has
steadily upheld the proudest pretensions of the Brahman; and it has
never relaxed the sternest restrictions of caste. We cannot wonder at
the severe judgment pronounced on Hinduism by nearly every Western
author. According to Macaulay, "all is hideous and grotesque and
ignoble;" and the calmer De Tocqueville maintains that "Hinduism is
perhaps the only system of belief that is worse than having no religion
at all."[22]

When a modern Hindu is asked what are the sacred books of his religion
he generally answers: "The Vedas, the Sastras (that is, philosophical
systems), and the Puranas." Some authorities add the Tantras.

The modern form of Hinduism is exhibited chiefly in the eighteen
Puranas, and an equal number of Upapuranas (minor Puranas).[23]

[Sidenote: The Puranas.]
When we compare the religion embodied in the Puranas with that of Vedic
times we are startled at the magnitude of the change. The Pantheon is
largely new; old deities have been superseded; other deities have taken
their place. There has been both accretion from without and evolution
from within. The thirty-three gods of the Vedas have been fantastically
raised to three hundred and thirty millions. Siva, Durga, Rama, Krishna,
Kali--un