the Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavat Pura.na, and he was probably also
influenced in the sensual tone he gave to the whole by the poems of
Jayadeva. The Bhakta or devotee passes through five successive stages,
_Santa_ or resigned contemplation of the deity is the first, and
from it he passes into _Dasya_ or the practice of worship and
service, whence to _Sakhya_ or friendship, which warms into
_Batsalya_, filial affection, and lastly rises to _Madhurya_
or earnest, all-engrossing love.

Vaish.navism is singularly like Sufiism, the resemblance has often been
noticed, and need here only be briefly traced. [Footnote: Conf. Capt.
J. W. Graham's paper 'On Sufiism,' _Bombay Literary Soc. Trans._
Vol. I. pp. 89 et seqq.; Rajendralala Mittra's valuable introduction to
the _Chaitanya Chandrodaya_ (Biblioth. Ind.), pp. ii-iv and xv;
also Jones' 'Mystical Poetry of the Persians and Hindus,' _Asiat.
Res._ Vol. III. pp. 165-207; and Leyden, 'On the Rosheniah Sect,
&c.,' _As. Res._ Vol. XI. pp. 363-428.--ED.] With the latter the
first degree is _nasut_ or 'humanity' in which man is subject to
the law _shara_, the second _tarikat_, 'the way' of
spiritualism, the third _'aruf_ or 'knowledge,' and the fourth
_hakikat_ or 'the truth.' Some writers give a longer series of
grades, thus--_talab,_ 'seeking after god;' _'ishk_, 'love;'
_m'arifat_, 'insight;' _istighnah_, 'satisfaction;'
_tauhid_, 'unity;' _hairat_, 'ecstacy;' and lastly
_fana_, 'absorption.' Dealing as it does with God and Man as two
factors of a problem, Vaish.navism necessarily ignores the distinctions
of caste, and Chaitanya was perfectly consistent in this respect,
admitting men of all castes, including Muhammadans, to his sect. Since
his time, however, that strange love of caste-distinctions, which seems
so ineradicable from the soil of India, has begun again to creep into