Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/388

 the Mahammedan conquest of the country, when the cherished ideas and hoary traditions of the nation were rudely shaken, a scorching gale would seem to have passed over the verdant religious face of India. The popular mind was unhinged and unsettled. A living faith, entering into the daily concerns of the masses, ceased to be current. Abstruse Pantheism and austere Saivism were not wanting. But a demonstrative religion, calculated to appeal to the populace, was evidently conspicuous by its absence. Dull rites and unintelligible observances were the thin mildew thrown out to the hungry millions. A creed potent enough to disturb the lethargy and rouse the latent energy of the nation was, therefore, imminently necessary. And no religion was, perhaps, better fitted to answer the purpose of the day than Vaishnavism. Remarkable for its lofty doctrine of bhakti (devotion) and for its ethical code which, "amidst much abasement," has a golden core of nobility, Vaishnavism was, we believe, the needed dispensation of the