A history of the Sikhs, from the origin of the nation to the battles of the Sutlej.

26 HISTORY OF THE SIKHS CHAP. II nearly allied to himself in nature than the invisible and passionless divinity.' The concession of a simple black stone as a mark of direction to the senses,2 no longer satisfied the hearts or understandings of the people, and Shankar Acharj, who could silence the Buddha materialist, and confute the infidel Charvak,3 was compelled to admit 1 Mr. Elphinstone (History of India, i. 189) observes that Rama and Krishna, with their human feelings and congenial acts, attracted more votaries than the gloomy Siva; and I have somewhere noticed, I think in the Edinburgh Review, the truth well enlarged upon, viz. that the sufferings of Jesus materially aided the growth of Christianity by enlisting the sympathies of the multitude in favour of a crucified God. The bitter remark of Xenophanes, that if oxen became religious their gods would be bovine in form, is indeed most true as expressive of a generaldesire among men to make their divinities anthropomorphous. (Grote, History of Greece, iv. 523, and Thirlwall, History, ii. 136.) 2 Hindu Saivism, or the worship of the Lingam, seems to represent the compromise which the learned Brahmans made when they endeavoured to exalt and purify the superstition of the multitude, who throughout India continue to this day to see the mark of the near presence of the Divinity in everything.- The Brahmans may thus have taught the mere fetichist, that when regarding a simple black stone, they should think of the invisible ruler of the universe; and they may have wished to leave the Buddhist image worshippers some point of direction for the senses. That the Lingam is typical of reproductive energy seems wholly a notion of later times, and to be confined to the few who ingeniously or perversely see recondite meanings in ordinary similitudes. (Cf. Wilson, Vishnu Purdn, preface, lxiv [and Colonel Kennedy (Res. Hind. Mythol., pp. 284,308), who distinctly says the Lingam and Youi are not held to be typical of the destructive and reproductive powers; and that there is nothing in the Purans to sanction such an opinion.-J. D. C.].) [The latter part of the author's note, which begs the whole question of phallic worship, is hardly in agreement with modern theory.-Ed.] 3 Professor Wilson (Asiatic Researches, xvi. 18) derives the title of the Charvak school from a Muni or seer of that name; but the Brahmans, at least of Malwa, derive the distinctive name, both of the teacher and of the system, from Charu, persuasive, excellent, and Vak, speech-thus making the school simply the logical or dialectic, or perhaps sophistical, as it has become in fact. The Charvakites are wholly materialist, and in deriving consciousness from a particular aggregation or condition of the elements of the body, they seem to have anticipated the physiologist, Dr. Lawrence, who makes the brain to secrete thought as the liver secretes bile. The system is also styled the Varhusputya, and the name of Vrihaspati, the orthodox Regent of the planet Jupiter, became connected with Atheism, say the Hindus, owing to the jealousy with which the

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Title
A history of the Sikhs, from the origin of the nation to the battles of the Sutlej.
Author
Cunningham, Joseph Davey, 1812-1851.
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Page 26
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London,: H. Milford, Oxford university press,
1918.
Subject terms
Sikhs

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"A history of the Sikhs, from the origin of the nation to the battles of the Sutlej." In the digital collection Digital General Collection. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/afh9527.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 22, 2025.
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