Note 396 — Chapter XXV

Thus the Saura Purâṇa inveighs against the Mâdhva sect (XXXVIII.-XL.) and calls Vishṇu the servant of Śiva: a Purâṇic legal work called the Vriddha-Harita-Samhitâ is said to contain a polemic against Śiva. Occasionally we hear of collisions between the followers of Vishṇu and Śiva or the desecration of temples by hostile fanatics. But such conflicts take place most often not between widely different sects but between subdivisions of the same sect, e.g., Tengalais and Vadagalais. It would seem too that at present most Hindus of the higher castes avoid ostentatious membership of the modern sects, and though they may practise special devotion to either Vishṇu or Śiva, yet they visit the temples of both deities when they go on pilgrimages. Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya in his Hindu Castes and Sects says (p. 364) that aristocratic Brahmans usually keep in their private chapels both a salâgram representing Vishṇu and emblems representing Śiva and his spouse. Hence different observers vary in their estimates of the importance of sectarian divisions, some holding that sect is the essence of modern Hinduism and others that most educated Hindus do not worship a sectarian deity. The Kûrma Purâṇa, Part I. chap. XXII. contains some curious rules as to what deities should be worshipped by the various classes of men and spirits.