rit MSS. describes a
great number of modern works dealing with Bhakti.]

[Footnote 433: Yet it is found in Francis Thompson's poem called _Any
Saint_

So best
God loves to jest
With children small, a freak
Of heavenly hide and seek
Fit
For thy wayward wit.]

[Footnote 434: Pope, _The History of Manikka-Vacagar_, p. 23. For the
64 sports of Siva see Siddhanta Dipika, vol. IX.]

[Footnote 435: _E.g._ Ramanuja, Nammarvar, Basava.]

[Footnote 436: Apparently meaning "possessor of cows," and originally
a title of the youthful Krishna. It is also interpreted as meaning
Lord of the Vedas or Lord of his own senses.]

[Footnote 437: _E.g._ the beginning of the Chand. Up. about the syllable
_Om._ See too the last section of the Aitareya Aran. The Yoga
Upanishads analyse and explain _Om_ and some Vishnuite Upanishads
(Nrisimha and Ramata-paniya) enlarge on the subject of letters and
diagrams.]

[Footnote 438: The same idea pervades the old literature in a slightly
different form. The parts of the sacrifice are constantly identified
with parts of the universe or of the human body.]

[Footnote 439: The cakras are mentioned in Act V of Malati and Madhava
written early in the eighth century. The doctrine of the nadis occurs
in the older Upanishads (_e.g._ Chand. and Maitrayana) in a rudimentary
form.]

CHAPTER XXVII

THE EVOLUTION OF HINDUISM. BHAGAVATAS AND PASUPATAS

1

India is a literary country and naturally so great a change as the
transformation of the old religion into theistic sects preaching
salvation by devotion to a particular deity found expression in a long
and copious literature. This literature supplements and supersedes the
Vedic treatises but without impairing their theoretical authority,
and, since it cannot compare with them in antiquity and has not the
same historic interest, it has received little attention from
Indianists until the present century. But in spite of its defects it
is of the highest importance for an understanding of medieval and
contemporary Hinduism. Much of it is avowedly based on the principle
that in this degenerate age the Veda is difficult to understand,[440]
and that therefore God in His mercy has revealed other texts
containing a clear compendium of doctrine. Thus the great Vishnuite
doctor Ramanuja states authoritatively "The incontrovertible fact then
is as follows: The Lord who is known from the Vedanta texts ...
recogni