Having now explained the two principal divisions of the modern sects, we can lead the reader into the church of Vishnu.  It is a church of two great parties, each being variously subdivided.  Of these two parties the Krishnaites are intellectually the weaker, and hence numerically the stronger.  All Krishnaites, of course, identify the man-god Krishna with Vishnu, and their sub-sects revert to various teachers, of whom the larger number are of comparatively recent date, although as a body the Krishnaites may claim an antiquity as great, if not greater, than that of the Ramaites.

But the latter party, in their various sub-sects, all claim as their founder either R[=a]m[=a]nuja himself or one of his followers; and since, if the claim be granted, the R[=a]ma sects do but continue his work, we shall begin by following out the result of his teaching as it was interpreted by his disciples; especially since the Krishnaites have left to the Ramaites most of the philosophizing of the church, and devoted themselves more exclusively to the moralities and immoralities of their more practical religion.  As a matter of fact, the Ramaites to-day are less religious than philosophical, while in the case of the Krishnaites, with some reservations, the contrary may be said to be the case.

THE RAMAITES.

Since the chief characteristic of growth among Hindu sectaries is a sort of segmentation, like that which conditions the development of amoebas and other lower organisms, it is a forgone conclusion that the Ramaites, having formed one body apart from the Krishnaites, will immediately split up again into smaller segments.  It is also a foregone conclusion, since one is really dealing here with human types, that these smaller segments will mutually hate and despise each other much more than they hate their common adversaries.  Just as, in old times, a Calvinist hated a Lutheran more than he did a Russian Christian (for he understood his quarrel better), so a ‘cat-doctrine’ Ramaite hates a ‘monkey-doctrine’ Ramaite far more than he hates a Krishnaite, while with a Civaite he often has an amicable union; although the Krishnaite belittles the Ramaite’s manifestation of Vishnu, and the Civaite belittles Vishnu himself.[71]

The chief point of difference theologically between the Ramaites is the one just mentioned.  The adherents of the ‘cat-doctrine’ teach that God saves man as a cat takes up its kitten, without free-will on the part of the latter.  The monkey-doctrinaires teach that man, in order to be saved, must reach out to their God (R[=a]ma, who is Vishnu, who, again, is All-god, that is, brahma), and embrace their God as a monkey does its mother.[72] The resemblance to the Occidental sects here becomes still more interesting.  But we have given an earlier example of the doctrine of free grace from the epic, and can now only locate the modern sects that still argue the question.