. The north-western provinces of India : their history, ethnology, and administration . revival in thePuranas. The vast majority are divided in the threefoldcultus of Siva, Vishnu, and the Saktis. It would, however,be a mistake to suppose that there is a distinct line ofcleavage between these beliefs ; on the contrary they arecomplements of each other. Saivism, as Sir Alonier Williams has explained it, is afaith based on the awe felt by human beings in the presenceof the two mutually complementary forces of disintegrationand reintegration; while the worship of the personal godVishnu, in his de
. The north-western provinces of India : their history, ethnology, and administration . revival in thePuranas. The vast majority are divided in the threefoldcultus of Siva, Vishnu, and the Saktis. It would, however,be a mistake to suppose that there is a distinct line ofcleavage between these beliefs ; on the contrary they arecomplements of each other. Saivism, as Sir Alonier Williams has explained it, is afaith based on the awe felt by human beings in the presenceof the two mutually complementary forces of disintegrationand reintegration; while the worship of the personal godVishnu, in his descents upon earth in human form, is nothingbut the expression of the very natural interest felt by manin his own preservation, and in the working of the physicalforces which resist dissolution. The Saivas, then, who by the returns comprise nearly one-fifth of the whole Hindu population, worship Siva, or, as heis often called, Mahadeva, the great god under the formof the Linga, or conical stone, which in its primary formrepresents the regenerative power of Nature, but to the vast 246. A HARIVVASA VAISHNAVA FAKJR. THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PEOPLE mass of the people has no meaning except that of a fetishwhich is occupied by and represents the deity. His attri-butes have never been better described than in the powerfullines of Sir A. Lyall— The god of the sensuous fireThat moulds all Nature in forms divine,The symbols df death and of mans desire,The springs of change in the world are mine,The organs of birth and the circlet of bones,And the light loves carved on the temple stones. I am the lord of delights and pain,Of the pest that killeth, of fruitful joys :I rule the currents of heart and vein :A touch gives passion, a look destroys :In the heat and cold of my lightest breath,In the might incarnate of Lust and Death. He has many forms—that of the primeval Creator, thechief of ascetics, who has won lordship over the gods by therigour of his austerities, the king of
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Keywords: ., bookauthorcrookewi, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookyear1897
