' Dealing as it does with God and Man as two
factors of a problem, Vaish.navism necessarily ignores the distinctions
of caste, and Chaitanya was perfectly consistent in this respect,
admitting men of all castes, including Muhammadans, to his sect. Since
his time, however, that strange love of caste-distinctions, which seems
so ineradicable from the soil of India, has begun again to creep into
Vaish.navism, and will probably end by establishing its power as firmly
in this sect as in any other.
Although the institution of love towards the divine nature, and the
doctrine that this love was reciprocated, were certainly a great
improvement on the morbid gloom of ? iva-worship, the colourless
negativeness of Buddhism, and the childish intricacy of ceremonies
which formed the religion of the mass of ordinary Hindus, still we
cannot find much to admire in it. There seems to be something almost
contradictory in representing the highest and purest emotions of the
mind by images drawn from the lowest and most animal passions.
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