fortyeight different sects.[1] But the information about these is, as a rule, very meagre, unsatisfactory, and even, contradictory.[2] The record of the Buddhist-Hindu period in the History of Hinduism is a very broken and unsatisfactory one. It is only in the case of Buddhism that it is any thing like satisfactory. We know, that side by side with the later form of Buddhism, there were formed Saivism and Vaishnavism; but the connecting links between them and the different forms of Vedic faith are missing, and we can only hazard guesses as to the time and mode of their formation. With the Puránic. period we tread upon the firmer ground of history. Samkara was the first of a succession of great Hindu apostles who notwithstanding the accumulation round their names of many fables, more or less absurd, are historical, personages. His date may be approximately given to be the end of the eighth century. Born in the Deccan, (according to most accounts in Malabar), he led an itinerant and
- ↑ The Vaishnava sects mentioned in the Samkara-Vijaya are: Bháktas, Bhágavatas, Vaishnavas, Chakrinas or Páncharatras, Vaikhanasas, and Karmahinas. The main tenets of several of these are still current; but the sects themselves have become extinct. The term Vaishnava is at present applied to a large division of the Hindus who are worshippers of Vishnu as Krishna, Ráma &c. The Saiva sects mentioned by A'nandagiri, the author of Samkara-vijaya, are the Saivas, Raudras, Ugras, Bháktas, Jangamas and Pásupatas. Of these the Jangamas alone, found chiefly in Southern India, have survived to the present day.
- ↑ In the Mahábhárata, for instance, the Páncharátras and the Bhágavatas are supposed to be two closely connected sects. In the seventh century, however, they are spoken of by the poet Bána as two distinct sects. In the Varáha Purána, on the other hand, they are supposed to be identical. "It is by no means certain" says Barth
