[Sidenote: Reforms attempted.
Kabir.
Nanak.
Failure of all reforms.]
Reformers have arisen from time to time in India; men who saw the
deplorable corruption of religion, and strove to restore it to what they
considered purity. Next to Buddha we may mention Kabir, to whom are
ascribed many verses still popular. Probably the doctrine of the unity
of God, as maintained by the Mohammedans, had impressed him. He opposed
idolatry, caste, and Brahmanical assumption. Yet his monotheism was a
kind of pantheism. His date may be the beginning of the fifteenth
century. Nanak followed and founded the religion of the Sikhs. His
sacred book, the _Granth_, is mainly pantheistic; it dwells earnestly on
devotion, especially devotion to the _guru_. The Sikhs now seem slowly
relapsing into idolatry. In truth, the history of all attempts at
reformation in India has been most discouraging. Sect after sect has
successively risen to some elevation above the prevalent idolatry; and
then gradually, as by some irresistible gravitation, it has sunk back
into the _mare magnum_ of Hinduism. If we regard experience,
purification from within is hopeless; the struggle for it is only a
repetition of the toil of Sisyphus, and always with the same sad issue.
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