Page:An Essay On Hinduism.pdf/99

but to-day principles of dealing with them have been formulated, and the evils they used to cause are tending to disappear. The future native sampradāyas are not likely to cause much social disturbance; but the foreign sampradāyas like Christianity and Mohamedanism will give a great deal of trouble for years to come; but they also will yield to the process, which has eliminated the evil effects of various native religions within Hinduism. For the comprehension of the situation it is necessary to dwell on the relation of sampradāyas in Hinduism.

I repeat here that Hinduism is not a religion; Christianity or Islam bears no similarity to it, but they resemble in character the various sampradāyas in India. European writers translate the word sampradāya by the word "sect." But the word ought to be translated by the word "religion," or more properly by the word theophratry, which I am using in this work. The relation which the sampradāyas bear to Hinduism is the same as that which Christianity and Mohamedanism bear to the entire world.

The word sampradāya is used in the sense either of a religious society or of the doctrines of the society.

Sampradāyas, in the first sense, are societies established by a particular religious leader after whom they are named. These sampradāyas were generally started by men who were dissatisfied with some tenets of the philosophy of their times, and who believed that salvation can be achieved by a better and an easier path, and wanted to make it accessible to other men by showing them the path. These teachers would preach and make disciples; the society which is thus formed becomes a sampradāya, provided that it can ensure any permanence.

These sampradāyas generally regard their founder as