Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect c7.1

c7.1

“The most important branch of Indian history,” says Vincent Smith, “is the history of her thought.” “The soul of Hindu Civilisation,” says C. N. Krishna Swami Aiyar, “is at once made out to be in the religious history of India.” “The history of religion in India,” he adds, “has a much larger meaning than it can have in connection with the civilisation of any other country or nationality.” Hitherto the attention of Indologists has been mainly engrossed by the mighty religious movements associated with the names of Mahāvīra the Jina and Gautama the Buddha. Vaishnavism and other orthodox Indian creeds have received but scant attention at the hands of scientific historians. The prevailing ignorance with regard to Vaishnavism is reflected in such a widely read book of reference as Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary where Krishna is described as “a deity in later Hindu Mythology.”