OP CHEISTIANITY UPON OTHER RELIGJOUS SYSTEMS. 29 



remains for ever sitting in perfect happiness at His feet. Here 

 again we trace the influence of Christian teaching, though it is 

 strangely mixed with the Pantheistic Hindu idea of emanation 

 and that of Metempsychosis, and uses terms which, like Mukta, 

 are elsewhere employed to convey the contrary conception of 

 absorption into the impersonal All. 



Yet it must be admitted that, probably because the doctrine 

 of hhaJcti in its fully developed form is not truly indigenous in 

 India it has been much abused and misapplied. Even in some 

 of the Upanishads salvation through bhakti has come to mean 

 escape from the punishment of sin through the simple, even 

 unconscious, repetition of such names as Kama, ISTarayana, or 

 other Avataras of Vishnu. Thus we read in the Karayana 

 Upanishad, v. 5, " He Who reveres the phrase Om, Namo Ndrd- 

 yanciya (Amen, honour to Yishnu), his portion shall be Vai- 

 kuntha's Heaven." The robber Valmiki, when murdering 

 Brahmans, used the word mar (strike). As this word when 

 spelled backwards becomes the sacred name Kam, he was not 

 only saved by its repetition but became equal in dignity to 

 Brahma himself. 



Much later, too, absolute devotion of tan, man, dhan (body, 

 mind, property) to the service of a man who, being descended 

 from someone reputed to have been in some degree an incarna- 

 tion of Krishna, is esteemed the proper recipient of divine 

 honours, is declared to be necessary and sufficient to procure 

 salvation for the devotee. Caitanya* (born about a.d. 1485) 

 made this a distinctive feature of his system. This still leads in 

 India to the most immoral conduct, and the total submission of 

 the worshipper to the caprices of inhuman monsters, guilty of 

 the most abominable wickedness. 



We must add that in modern India a strenuous effort is being 

 made to render Krishna the successful rival of Christ as the 

 object of men's entire devotion. A book entitled, The Imitation 

 of Krishna, appeared some years ago. The title speaks for itself, 

 and displays this rivalry openly. But, beside this, the influence 

 of Christianity is shown in the fact that imitation of Krishna 

 implies that he should be taken as a model, though this is con- 

 trary to Hindu thought about the functions of an Avatara. Just 

 as in the last days of Classical heathenism the influence of 

 Christianity was clearly manifested in the effort made by Julian 

 the Apostate and others to revive the worship of Apollo and 



* Moore, Hist, of Religions, yo\. i, p. 339 ; Monier-WilHams, Hinduitiny 

 p. 146. 



