ecial devotion to either Vishnu or Siva,
yet they visit the temples of both deities when they go on
pilgrimages. Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya in his _Hindu Castes and
Sects_ says (p. 364) that aristocratic Brahmans usually keep in their
private chapels both a salagram representing Vishnu and emblems
representing Siva and his spouse. Hence different observers vary in
their estimates of the importance of sectarian divisions, some holding
that sect is the essence of modern Hinduism and others that most
educated Hindus do not worship a sectarian deity. The Kurma Purana,
Part I. chap. XXII. contains some curious rules as to what deities
should be worshipped by the various classes of men and spirits.]

[Footnote 397: Bhag.-gita, XL. 23-34.]

[Footnote 398: See Srisa Chandra Vasu, _Daily practice of the Hindus_,
p. 118.]

[Footnote 399: II. 1 and I. 1.]

[Footnote 400: See Maitrayana Up. V. 2. It is highly probable that
the celebrated image at Elephanta is not a Trimurti at all but a
Mahesamurti of Siva. See Gopinatha Rao, _Hindu Iconog._ II. 382.]

CHAPTER XXVI

FEATURES OF HINDUISM: RITUAL, CASTE, SECT, FAITH

1

In the last chapter I traced the growth of the great gods Siva and
Vishnu. The prominence of these figures is one of the marks which
distinguish the later phase of Indian religion from the earlier. But
it is also distinguished by various practices, institutions and
beliefs, which are more or less connected with the new deities. Such
are a new ritual, the elaboration of the caste system, the growth of
sects, and the tendency to make devotion to a particular deity the
essence of religion. In the present chapter I shall say something of
these phenomena.

Hinduism has often and justly been compared to a jungle. As in the
jungle every particle of soil seems to put forth its spirit in
vegetable life and plants grow on plants, creepers and parasites on
their more stalwart brethren, so in India art, commerce, warfare and
crime, every human interest and aspiration seek for a manifestation in
religion, and since men and women of all classes and occupations, all
stages of education and civilization, have contributed to Hinduism,
much of it seems low, foolish and even immoral. The jungle is not a
park or garden. Whatever can grow in it, does grow. The Brahmans are
not gardeners but forest officers. To attempt a history or description
of Indian creeds seems an enterprise as vast, hopeless and pathless as
a g