Nor is the spirit of bhakti absent from Buddhism.  The severe doctrine of the older schools declares that the Buddha is simply a teacher and that every man must save himself.  But since the teacher is the source of the knowledge which saves, it is natural to feel for him grateful and affectionate devotion.  This sentiment permeates the two books of poems called Thera and Therigatha and sometimes finds clear expression.[430] In the commentary on the Dhammapada[431] the doctrine of salvation by devotion is affirmed in its extreme form, namely that a dying man who has faith in the Buddha will be reborn in heaven.  But this commentary is not of early date and the doctrine quoted is probably an instance of the Hinayana borrowing the attractive features of the Mahayana.  The sutras about Amitabha’s paradise, which were composed about the time of the Christian era and owe something to Persian though not to Christian influence, preach faith in Amitabha as the whole of religion.  They who believe in him and call on his name will go to heaven.

When bhakti was once accepted as a part of Indian religion, it was erected into a principle, analogous or superior to knowledge and was defined in Sutras[432] similar to those of the Sankhya and Vedanta.  But its importance in philosophy is small, whereas its power as an impulse in popular religion has been enormous.  To estimate its moral and intellectual value is difficult, for like so much in Hinduism it offers the sharpest contrasts.  Its obvious manifestations may seem to be acts of devotion which cannot be commended ethically and belief in puerile stories:  yet we find that this offensive trash continually turns into gems of religious thought unsurpassed in the annals of Buddhism and Christianity.

The doctrine of bhakti is common to both Vishnuites and Sivaites.  It is perhaps in general estimation associated with the former more than with the latter, but this is because the Bhagavad-gita and various forms of devotion to Krishna are well known, whereas the Tamil literature of Dravidian Sivaism is ignored by many European scholars.  One might be inclined to suppose that the emotional faith sprang up first in the worship of Vishnu, for the milder god seems a natural object for love, whereas Siva has to undergo a certain transformation before he can evoke such feelings.  But there is no evidence that this is the historical development of the bhakti sentiment, and if the Bhagavad-gita is emphatic in enjoining the worship of Krishna only, the Svetasvatara and Maitrayaniya Upanishads favour Siva, and he is abundantly extolled in many parts of the Mahabharata.  Here, as so often, exact chronology fails us in the early history of these sects, but it is clear that the practice of worshipping Siva and Vishnu, as being each by himself all-sufficient, cannot have begun much later than the Christian era and may have begun considerably earlier, even though people did not call themselves Saivas or Vaishnavas.