says Sir Monier Williams, “is really a kind of ‘meritorious work,’ and not equivalent to ‘faith’ in the Christian sense."[129] Bhakti is the religion of many millions of India, combined more or less with the conventional externals of sacrifice and offerings and pilgrimages and employment of brahmans, which together constitute the third path of salvation, by karma or works.  That ecstatic adoration is religion for many millions of India, although the name bhakti may never pass their lips.  We judged the idea of salvation by knowledge, or by intense concentration of mind, to be genuinely felt, because it could override the idea of caste.  Applying the same test here, we must acknowledge the genuineness of feeling in bhakti.  Theoretically, at least, as Sir Monier Williams says, “devotion to Vishnu supersedes all distinctions of caste”; and again, “Vishnavism [Vishnuism], notwithstanding the gross polytheistic superstitions and hideous idolatry to which it gives rise, is the only Hindu system worthy of being called a religion."[130] In actual practice the repudiation of caste no doubt varies greatly.  In some cases, caste is dropped only during the fit of fervour or bhakti.  At Puri, during the celebrated Juggernath (Jagan-nath, Lord of the world) pilgrimage, high caste and low together receive and eat the temple food, afterwards resuming their several ranks in caste.  As a matter of fact it was found at the census of 1901, that with the exception of a few communities of devotees, all the professed Vishnuites returned themselves by their caste names.  Hindu bhakti, like Christianity, is in conflict with caste, and bhakti has not proved fit to cope with it.

[Sidenote:  Bhakti in other religions.]

[Sidenote:  In Christian worship.]

Bhakti, then, is simply the designation for fervour in worship or in presence of the Deity, as it appears in Hinduism.  For fervour is not peculiar to any religion, even ecstatic fervour.  We see it among the Jews in King David’s dancing before the ark of the Lord, and we see it in the whirling of the dervishes of Cairo, despite Mahomedans’ overawing idea of God.  May we not say that the singing in Christian worship recognises the same religious instinct, and the necessity to permit the exercise of it.  Many of the psalms, we feel we must chant or sing; reading is too cold for them—­the 148th Psalm for example, “Praise ye the Lord from the heavens; praise Him in the heights:  praise ye Him, sun and moon,” and so on.

[Sidenote:  Bhakti a natural channel for religious feeling, now being reconsecrated.]