TRANSACTIONS 



OF THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



A Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus. 



By HORACE HAYMAN WILSON, Esq. Sec. As. Soc. 



INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 



J. HE Hindu religion is a term, that has been hitherto employed in a collec- 

 tive sense, to designate a faith and worship of an almost endlessly diversified 

 description: to trace some of its varieties is the object of the present enquiry. 



An early division of the Hindu system, and one conformable to the ge= 

 nius of all Polytheism, separated the practical and popular belief, from the 

 speculative or philosophical doctrines. Whilst the common people addressed 

 their hopes and fears to stocks and stones, and multiplied by their credulity 

 and superstition the grotesque objects of their veneration, some few, of deep- 

 er thought and wider contemplation, plunged into the mysteries of man and 



B 



