At all events, the system of bhakti has had, and still has, great sway in India, particularly in Bengal, among the followers of Chaitanya, and the large body of people in western India who style themselves Vaishnavas or Bhaktas (devotees).  The popular poetry of Maharashtra, as exemplified in such poets as Tukarama, is an impassioned inculcation of devotion to Vithoba of Pandharpur, who is a manifestation of Krishna.  Into the bhakti system of western India Buddhist elements have entered; and the school of devotees is often denominated Bauddha-Vaishnava.  Along with extravagant idolatry it inculcates generally, at least in the Maratha country, a pure morality; and the latter it apparently owes to Buddhism.  Yet there are many sad lapses from purity.  Almost of necessity the worship of Krishna led to corruption.  The hymns became erotic; and movements hopeful at their commencement—­like that of Chaitanya of Bengal, in the sixteenth century—­soon grievously fell off in character.  The attempt to make religion consist of emotion without thought, of bhakti without jnana, had disastrous issues.  Coincident with the development of bhakti was the exaltation of the guru, or religious teacher, which soon amounted to deification—­a change traceable from about the twelfth century A.D.

[Sidenote:  Explanations of Krishna’s evil deeds.] When pressed on the subject of Krishna’s evil deeds many are anxious to explain them as allegorical representations of the union between the divinity and true worshipers; but some interpret them in the most literal way possible.  This is done especially by the followers of Vallabha Acharya.[28] These men attained a most unenviable notoriety about twenty years ago, when a case was tried in the Supreme Court of Bombay, which revealed the practice of the most shameful licentiousness by the religious teachers and their female followers, and this as a part of worship!  The disgust excited was so great and general that it was believed the influence of the sect was at an end; but this hope unhappily has not been realized.

[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