for,
at the time when the sect became exposed, this means of death was
merely the safest way to kill. They insisted always on being called
Thugs, and scorned the name of thief. They were suppressed by 1840.
Reynolds describes them as "mostly men of mild and unobtrusive
manners, possessing a cheerful disposition."[55]

THE VISHNUITE SECTS.

There is a formal idealistic Civaism, as we have shown, and there was
once a dualistic Vishnuism; but in general the Vishnuite is an
idealist. To comprehend the quarrels among the sects of this religion,
however, it will be necessary to examine the radical philosophical
differences of their founders, for one passes, in going from modern
Civaism to Vishnuism, out of ignorant superstition into philosophical
religion, of which many even of the weaker traits are but recent
Hinduistic effeminacy substituted for an older manly thinking.

The complex of Vishnuite sects presents at first rather a confused
appearance, but we think that we can make the whole body separate
itself clearly enough into its component parts, if the reader will
pause at the threshold and before entering the edifice look at the
foundation and the outer plan of Vedantic philosophy.

At the beginning of Colebrooke's essays on Hindu philosophy he
thus describes four of the recognized systems: "The two
M[=i]m[=a]ms[=a]s... are emphatically orthodox. The prior one,
_p[=u]rva_[56] which has J[=a]imini for its founder, teaches the art
of reasoning, with the express view of aiding the interpretation of
the Vedas. The latter, _uttara_[57] commonly called Ved[=a]nta, and
attributed to Vy[=a]sa (or B[=a]dar[=a]yana), deduces from the text of
the Indian scriptures a refined psychology, which goes to a denial of
a material world. A different philosophical system, partly heterodox,
and partly conformable to the established Hindu creed, is the
S[=a]nkhya; of which also, as of the preceding, there are two schools;
one usually known by that name,[58] the other commonly termed
Yoga."[59]

The eldest of these systems, as we have already had occasion to state,
is the dualistic S[=a]nkhya. It was still highly esteemed in the ninth
century, the time of the great Vedantist, Cankara.[60] A theistic form
of this atheistic philosophy is called the Puranic S[=a]nkhya, and
Pata[.n]jali's Yoga is thoroughly theistic. Radically opposed to the
dualistic S[=a]nkhya stands the Ved[=a]nta,[61] based on the
Upanishads that teach the identity