reject sacrifice in toto and make the basis of salvation emotional—­namely devotion to the deity, and as a counterpart to this the chief characteristic of the deity is loving condescension or grace.  The theological philosophy of each sect is nearly always, whatever name it may bear, a variety of the system known as Visishtadvaita, or qualified monism, which is not unlike the Sankhya-Yoga.[566] For Vishnuites as for Sivaites there exist God, the soul and matter, but most sects shrink from regarding them as entirely separate and bridge over the differences with various theories of emanations and successive manifestations of the deity.  But for practical religion the soul is entangled in matter and, with the help of God, struggles towards union with him.  The precise nature and intimacy of this union has given rise to as many subtle theories and phrases as the sacraments in Europe.  Vishnuite sects in all parts of India show a tendency to recognize vernacular works as their scriptures, but they also attach great importance to the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-gita, the Narayaniya and the Vedanta Sutras.  Each has a special interpretation of these last which becomes to some extent its motto.

But these books belong to the relatively older literature.  Many Vishnuite, or rather Krishnaite, works composed from the eighth century onwards differ from them in tone and give prominence to the god’s amorous adventures with the Gopis and (still later) to the personality of Radha.  This ecstatic and sentimental theology, though found in all parts of India, is more prevalent in the north than in the south.  Its great text-book is the Bhagavata Purana.  The same spirit is found in Jayadeva’s Gita-govinda, apparently composed in Bengal about 1170 A.D. and reproducing in a polished form the religious dramas or Yatras in which the life of Krishna is still represented.

2

The sect[567] founded by Nimbarka or Nimbaditya has some connection with this poem.  Its chief doctrine is known as dvaitadvaitamata, or dualistic non-duality, which is explained as meaning that, though the soul and matter are distinct from God, they are yet as intimately connected with him as waves with water or the coils of a rope with the rope itself.  This doctrine is referred to in the religious drama called Prabodhacandrodaya, probably composed at the end of the eleventh century.  The Nimavats, as the adherents of the sect are called, are found near Muttra and in Bengal.  It is noticeable that this sect, which had its origin in northern India, is said to have been persecuted by the Jains[568] and to have been subsequently revived by a teacher called Nivasa.  This may explain why in the twelfth century Vishnuism flourished in the south rather than in the north.[569] Less is known of the Nimbarkas than of the other sects.  They worship Krishna and Radha and faith in Krishna is said to be the only way to salvation.  Krishna was the deity of the earliest bhakti-sects.  Then in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there was a reaction in favour of Rama as a more spiritual deity, but subsequently Vallabha and Caitanya again made the worship of Krishna popular.  Nimbarka expressed his views in a short commentary on the Vedanta Sutras and also in ten verses containing a compendium of doctrine.[570]