anism. But there are numerous schismatic sects which hold
opinions diverging from it in regard to the nature and destiny of
the human soul. They may be considered in two classes. First,
there are some who defend the idea of the personal immortality of
the soul. The Siva Gnana Potham "establishes the doctrine of the
soul's eternal existence as an individual being." 23 The Saiva
school

17 Vishnu Purana, p. 25. Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, p. 33, note.

18 Vishnu Parana, pp. 39, 116.

19 Colebrooke, Essays, vol. i. p. 359.

20 Vishnu Purana, p. 252.

21 Vans Kennedy, Ancient and Hindu Mythology, p. 201.

22 Vishnu Purana, pp. 546, 642.

23 Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. ii. p. 141.

teach that when, at the close of every great period, all other
developed existences are rendered back to their primordial state,
souls are excepted. These, once developed and delivered from the
thraldom of their merit and demerit, will ever remain intimately
united with Deity and clothed in the resplendent wisdom.24
Secondly, there are others and probably at the present time they
include a large majority of the Brahmans who believe in the real
being both of the Supreme Soul and of separate finite souls,
conceiving the latter to be individualized parts of the former and
their true destiny to consist in securing absorption into it. The
relation of the soul to God, they maintain, is not that of ruled
and ruler, but that of part and whole. "As gold is one substance
still, however diversified as bracelets, tiaras, ear rings, or
other things, so Vishnu is one and the same, although modified in
the forms of gods, animals, and men. As the drops of water raised
from the earth by the wind sink into the earth again when the wind
subsides, so the variety of gods, men, and animals, which have
been detached by the agitation of the qualities, are reunited,
when the disturbance ceases, with the Eternal." 25 "The whole
obtains its destruction in God, like bubbles in water." The
Madhava sect believe that there is a personal All Soul distinct
from the human soul. Their proofs are detailed in one of the Maha
Upanishads.26 These two groups of sects, however, agree perfectly
with the ancient orthodox Brahmans in accepting the fundamental
dogma of a judicial metempsychosis, wherein each one is fastened
by his acts and compelled to experience the uttermost consequences
of his merit or demerit. They all coincide in one common
aspiration as