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The Tenth Lesson: The Religions of India. Part II1323
teachers have been teachers and founders of Vaishnava schools, as we have
noticed in passing.
The Shaivas.
In our preceding lesson we called your attention to the rise of Shiva from
the earlier conceptions of him as Rudra the Destroying God; on to the higher
conception of him as the third principle of the Hindu Trinity with the added
quality of the god of change and reproduction as well as his original quality
of the destroying principle; and then on to the still higher conception of
him as the Absolute Supreme Being, the latter claim, however, being made
only by his special following, the Shaivas—the claim being contested by the
Vaishnavas, who claim that distinction for their own deity, Vishnu. To the
Shaivas, Brahma and Vishnu are merely emanations from, or else high agents
or demiurges springing from Shiva and performing parts of his universal
work.
There is one great difference between the respective Vishnu and Shiva
cults, and that is that the Vishnu worshipers have their god appearing in
human form in his avatars, of which we have spoken, and they claim that
he is thus brought nearer to them in the matter of worship—that instead of
being an abstract being he is a real, human entity, partaking of the nature
of man, and thus understanding other men the better. To the Ramat-
Vaishnavas, the incarnation of Rama is a great and dignified leader, teacher
and guide, of the highest morality and offering a splendid example of
right living—ever the “great Example.” as he is called. And to the Krishna-
Vaishnavas, Krishna is regarded as the Savior of mankind, inspiring love and
fervid devotion to a degree impossible in the case of an abstract deity—a
touch of the intimate personal relation akin to the love for the Master among
the Christians, which is nearer than the love for Jehovah, the Father of the
Trinity, who is regarded rather more with awe, reverence, and fear, than with
the human love bestowed upon the second aspect of The Son. In fact, as
strange as may appear to the Western mind, many of the simpler-minded