Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus c5.2

c5.2

Although I have neither the purpose nor the power to enter into any detail of the remote condition of the Hindu faith, yet as its present state is of comparatively very recent origin, it may form a not unnecessary, nor uninteresting preliminary branch of the enquiry, to endeavour to determine its existing modifications, at the period immediately preceding the few centuries, which have sufficed to bestow upon it its actual form: it happens, also, that some controversial works exist, which throw considerable light upon the subject, and of which the proximity of their date, to the matters of which they treat, may be conjectured with probability or positively ascertained. Of these, the two principal works, and from which I shall derive such scanty information as is