shipped at Purí, whence his fame has spread through the civilized world. But nothing can be more unjust than the vulgar story which associates his car festival with the wholesale self-murder of his worshippers. Vishnu is essentially a bright and friendly god, who asks no offerings but flowers, and to whom the shedding of blood is a pollution. The official records, and
an accurate examination on the spot, disprove the calumnies of some English writers on this subject. Fatal accidents frequently happened amid an excited crowd. Suicides on occasions, have taken place. But the stories of wholesale bloodshed at one time told about Jagannáth, were merely ignorant libels on a gentle and peaceful god, to whom no sacrifice which cost the
life even of a kid could be offered. The Vishnu sects are called Vaishnavas.
The Vishnu Purana, circ. 1045 A. D.—In the eleventh century the Vishnuite doctrines were gathered into a religious treatise. The Vishnu Purana dates from about 1045 a.d., and probably represents, as indeed its name implies, 'ancient' traditions of Vishnu which had co-existed with Sivaism and Buddhism for centuries. It derived its doctrines from the Vedas, not, however, in a direct channel, but filtered through the two great epic poems. It forms one of the eighteen Puránas or Sanskrit theological works, in which the Bráhman moulders of Vishnuism and Sivaism embodied their rival systems. These works especially extol the second and third members of the Hindu triad, now claiming the pre-eminence for Vishnu as the sole deity, and now for Siva; but in their higher flights rising to a recognition that both are but forms for representing the one eternal God. They are said to contain 1½ million lines. But they exhibit only the Bráhmanical aspect of Vishnu-worship and Siva-worship, and are devoid of any genuine sympathy for the lower castes.
Vishnuite Apostles—Rámánuja, 1150 A.D.—The first of the line of Vishnuite reformers was Rámánuja, a Bráhman of Southern India. In the middle of the twelfth century, he led a movement against the Sivaites, proclaiming the unity of God, under the title of Vishnu, the Cause and the Creator of all things. Persecuted by the Chola king in Southern India, who tried to
