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The Tenth Lesson: The Religions of India. Part II1327
nevertheless have done a great injustice to the cult of the Shaivas, inasmuch
as they have told merely a half-truth, leaving the brighter half untold, because
unwitnessed. The higher Shaiva sects are composed of the Persons of high
social position and education, many being drawn to them by reason of the
interest in the more subtle features of philosophy as taught by their teachers.
The sects of the Dandis; the Dasnamis; and the Lingayats, respectively,
represent the higher phases of Shaiva philosophical and religious thought.
The Dandis and the Dasnamis, while ascetic to a degree, avoid the excesses
of the lower devotees, and a high form and degree of religious life and
morals is manifested among them. Their philosophy very much resembles
that of certain of their Vaishnava countrymen, inasmuch as it is based on the
Advaita Vedanta teachings of Sankacharya, the great Advaitist teacher. They
devote themselves to the study of, and contemplation of Brahman, or the
Supreme Being, or that, with which they hold the impersonal Shiva to be
identical—in other words they worship Brahman under the name and form
of Shiva, just as some of the Vaishnavas worship Brahman under the name
and form of Vishnu, or Krishna in the Absolute aspect. The Lingayats, while
wearing the phallus or symbol of the male generative power, are almost
puritanical in their views, regarding sex as a most sacred thing, and severely
condemning impure views, or actions, relating to it.
Other of these higher sects have attracted many highly educated
Brahmins and high-caste Hindus, and those of philosophical or, more
particularly metaphysical tendencies, and such dwell upon the metaphysical
features of the doctrine. Other high sects are composed of the better class
of Yogis and followers of Patanjali. The Spanda sect in the north inclines to
a mystic philosophy of a high order, somewhat resembling certain of the
Sufi doctrines. There are also, in the south, other mystic sects within the cult
of the Shaivas, whose poems are in the same fervid strain as the Persian Sufi
poetry (see lesson on Sufiism).
In strange contrast to the hideous images of Shiva favored by the lower
sects are those used by some of the higher sects, more particularly those