This veneration or deification of the Guru is found in most sects and assumes as extreme a form among the Śaivas as among the Vaishṇavas. The Śaiva Siddhânta teaches that divine instruction can be received only from one who is both god and man, and that the true Guru is an incarnation of Śiva. Thus the works of Mâṇikka-Vâçagar and Umâpati speak of Śiva coming to his devotees in the form of the Guru. In the sects that worship Kṛishṇa the Gurus are frequently called Gosain (Goswami).[436] Sometimes they are members of a particular family, as among the Vallabhâcâryas. In other sects there is no hereditary principle and even a Sudra is eligible as Guru.
One other feature of Sectarian Hinduism must be mentioned. It may be described as Tantrism or, in one of its aspects, as the later Yoga and is a combination of practices and theories which have their roots in the old literature and began to form a connected doctrine at least as early as the eighth century A.D. Some of its principal ideas are as follows: (i) Letters and syllables (and also their written forms and diagrams) have a potent influence both for the human organism and for the universe. This idea is found in the early Upanishads[437] and is fully developed in the later Sectarian Upanishads. (ii) The human organism is a miniature copy of the universe.[438] It contains many lines or channels (nâḍî) along which the nerve force moves and also nervous centres distributed from the hips to the head, (iii) In the lowest centre resides a force identical with the force which creates the universe.[439] When by processes which are partly physical it is roused and made to ascend to the highest centre, emancipation and bliss are obtained. (iv) There is a mysterious connection between the process of cosmic evolution and sound, especially the sacred sound Om.
These ideas are developed most thoroughly in Śâktist works, but are by no means peculiar to them. They are found in the Pâncarâtra and the later Puranas and have influenced almost all modern sects, although those which are based on emotional devotion are naturally less inclined to favour physical and magical means of obtaining salvation.
FOOTNOTES:
[401] The population of India (about 315 millions) is larger than that of Europe without Russia.
[402] But compare the English poet
"Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
... but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all
I should know what God and man is."
[403] Efforts are now being made by Hindus to suppress this institution.
[404] In the Vedic funeral ceremonies the wife lies down by her dead husband and is called back to the world of the living which points to an earlier form of the rite where she died with him. But even at this period, those who did not follow the Vedic customs may have killed widows with their husbands (see too Ath. Veda, XII. 3), and later, the invaders from Central Asia probably reinforced the usage. The much-abused Tantras forbid it.
[405] For the history of the Râmâyaṇa and Mahâbhârata and the dates assignable to the different periods of growth, see Winternitz, Gesch. Ind. Lit. vol. I. p. 403 and p. 439. Also Hopkins' Great Epic of India, p. 397. The two poems had assumed something like their present form in the second and fourth centuries A.D. respectively. These are probably the latest dates for any substantial additions or alterations and there is considerable evidence that poems called Bhârata and Râmâyaṇa were well known early in the Christian era. Thus in Aśvaghosha's Sûtrâlankâra (story XXIV) they are mentioned as warlike poems inculcating unbuddhist views. The Râmâyaṇa is mentioned in the Mahâvibhâshâ and was known to Vasubandhu (J.R.A.S. 1907, p. 99). A Cambojan inscription dating from the first years of the seventh century records arrangements made for the recitation of the Râmâyaṇa, Purâṇa and complete (aśesha) Bhârata, which implies that they were known in India considerably earlier. See Barth, Inscrip. Sanscrites de Cambodge, pp. 29-31. The Mahabharata itself admits that it is the result of gradual growth for in the opening section it says that the Bhârata consists of 8,800 verses, 24,000 verses and 100,000 verses.