Some at least among the six sects of the Vishnuite sects, which are described by the old writers, appear to have been more ancient.  Here too one finds Bh[=a]ktas, and with them the Bh[=a]gavatas, the old P[=a]ncar[=a]tras, the ‘hermit’ V[=a]ikh[=a]nasas, and Karmah[=i]nas, the latter “having no rites.”  Concerning these sects one gets scanty but direct information.  They all worshipped Vishnu under one form or another, the Bh[=a]ktas as V[=a]sudeva, the Bh[=a]gavatas[39] as Bhagavat.  The latter resembled the modern disciples of R[=a]m[=a]nuja and revered the holy-stone, appealing for authority to the Upanishads and to the Bhagavad Git[=a], the Divine Song.  Some too worshipped Vishnu exclusively as N[=a]r[=a]yana, and believed in a heaven of sensual delights.  The other sects, now extinct, offer no special forms of worship.  What is historically most important is that in this list of sects are found none that particularly worship the popular divinities of to-day, no peculiar cult of Krishna as an infant and no monkey-service.

Infidel sects are numerous in this period, of which sects the worst in the old writers’ opinion is the sensual C[=a]rv[=a]ka.  Then follow the (Buddhist) C[=u]nyav[=a]ds, who believe in ‘void,’ and S[=a]ugatas, who believe that religion consists only in kindness, the Kshapanakas, and the Jains.  The infamous ‘left-hand’ sectaries are also well known.

To one side of the Puranic religions, from the earlier time of which comes this account of heresies, reference has been made above:  the development of the fables in regard to the infant Krishna.  That the cult is well known in the later Pur[=a]nas and is not mentioned in this list of wrong beliefs seems to show that the whole cult is of modern growth, even if one does not follow Weber in all his signs of modification of the older practice.

RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS.

For the history of the cult there is in these works much to interest one in the description and determination of popular festivals in honor of the great sectarian gods.  Further details of more specific nature are given in other works which need not here be regarded.  By far the most important of these festivals are those that seem to have been absorbed by the sectarian cults, although they were originally more popular.  Weber in the paper on the r[=a]jas[=u]ya, to which we have had occasion several times to refer, has shown that a popular element abided long in the formal celebrations of the Brahmanic ritual.[40] is soundly beaten; that gaming creeps into the ceremony as a popular aspect; that there was a special ceremony to care katsenjammer caused by over-drinking; and that the whole ceremony was a popular spring festival, such as is found to-day (but without the royal part in the play).