Note 263 — Chapter II · (continued 2)

See Stevenson on The Anti-Brahmanical Religion of the Hindus, in Journal of Asiatic Society, vol. viii. pp. 331, 332, 336, 338. Mr. Wilson (Journal, vol. iii. p. 204) says, ‘The prevailing form of the Hindu religion in the south of the peninsula was, at the commencement of the Christian era, and some time before it most probably, that of Siva.’ See also vol. v. p. 85, where it is stated that Siva ‘is the only Hindu god to whom honour is done at Ellora.’ Compare Transac. of Soc. of Bombay, vol. iii. p. 521; Heeren's Asiatic Nations, 1846, vol. ii. pp. 62, 66. On the philosophical relations between the followers of Siva and those of Vishnu, see Ritter's Hist. of Ancient Philosophy, vol. iv. pp. 334, 335; and the noticeable fact (Buchanan's Mysore, vol. ii. p. 410), that even the Naimar caste, whose ‘proper deity’ is Vishnu, ‘wear on their foreheads the mark of Siva.’ As to the worship of Siva in the time of Alexander the Great, see Thirlwall's History of Greece, vol. vii. p. 36; and for further evidence of its extent, Bohlen, das alte Indien, vol. i. pp. 29, 147, 206, and Transac. of Asiatic Society, vol. ii. pp. 50, 294.