| Hinduism is a
highly practical as well as a Mighty philosophical religion. It has no faith in mere wordy
petitions called prayers to a vague abstraction of Divinity. It has no doubt its great
philosophical systems, which are a wonder to the modern world. It is some times said that
there is not a single philosophical idea in the modern systems of the West, which has not
been anticipated and developed to its fullest extent in one or other of our philosophical
systems. But, side by side with these Himalayas of
thought-in fact, flowing from them there are mighty streams of religious practice which
spread themselves over the whole society, penetrate to all its nooks and corners and
fertilize the souls of men. Every religious Hindu has his own Istadevata, according to his
adhikara - his Siva or Subrahmanya, his Rama or Krsna-Krsna, the flute-player, Krsna, the
lover of souls, Krsna, the charioteer of men - or his Saraswati, the goddess of learning,
or Lakshmi the goddess of prosperity, or Uma, the goddess of purity, the purity of -the
mountain air and of the eternal snows of the Himalayas. The forms are numberless. |
