Chap. II.] HINDOO SECTS. 83
and also because the fire employed can hardly fail to occasion even uninten- ad. —
tionally a destruction of animal life.
The Jains have no monastic establishments, and profess to follow a moral Mokii system code of great simplicity, consisting of five miahavratas or great duties, four merits, and three restraints. The duties are, refraining from injmy to life, truth, honesty, chastity, and freedom from worldly desires ; the merits are, liberality, gentleness, piety, and penance ; and the restraints are, government of the mind, government of the tongue, and government of the person. Their system seems to have originated about the sixth or seventh century, to have become powerful about the ninth, when Buddhism was suppressed, to have attained its greatest pro- sperity in the eleventh, and to have begun to decline in the twelfth. Its followers are still numerous, particularly in Gujerat, Rajpootana, and Canara, and, num- bering among them many bankers and opulent merchants, possess a large por- tion of the commercial wealth of the country.
In the course of this brief sm-vey of the Hindoo religion, it is impossible not Hindooism
not fixed,
to have been struck with the numerous changes of form which it has undergone, but variable. As it was originally brought into India by strangers, its very first introduction was a great and successful innovation on the behefs of the earher inhabitants. As unfolded in the Yedas, it assumes the form of an almost pure theism, or acknowledges only personifications of the elements as emblems of deity. In course of time, the Hindoo triad appears, and Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, recog- nized as three distinct forms of one God, or three distinct beings sharing the godhead among them, become the great objects of worship. The process of multiplication then begins to be rapidly carried on, and the pantheon becomes crowded with myriads of fabulous existences, male and female, embodying in their persons all imaginable qualities, virtuous as well as vicious. The old gods of the triad were then involved in a struggle for supremacy. Brahma first gave way, and ceased to have any external worship paid to him. Vishnu and Siva, though they at first seemed to fare better, ultimately shared a similar fate, their place being usurped partly by the consorts arbitrarily given to them, and partly by younger deities, who, though said to be only their avatars or incar- nations, did, m fact, push them from their stools and reign in their stead. Idolatry now had full scope, and the mere image became, instead of a figurative itsnumerous representation of some spiritual nature, the very god himself, being lodged and clothed, and fed, and served, as if it were a living being. Amid this degeneracy, a so-called orthodoxy was still recognized ; but numbers disdained to be bound by its rules, and sects, setting them at nought, sprung up in every quarter. Many of these sects, though of comparatively recent origin, have gained multi- tudes of converts ; and Hindooism, instead of forming one compact whole, con- sists, in fact, of discordant religions in almost endless variety, battling with each other for supremacy or existence. Nothing, therefore, can be more erroneous
than the representation often given. Hindooism, we are told, is one of the
