taken up by the Education Department, and their studies are being
directed to certain fixed subjects.

[Sidenote: The twofold priesthood--religious teachers and celebrants.]

[Sidenote: How doctrine moves independently of ritual.]

Another feature of the organisation of Hinduism, hitherto insufficiently
noticed, has a still closer connection with this freedom of thought and
fixity of practice. The Indian mind is open to new religious ideas,
while the religious customs of India remain almost unaffected, _because_
the priesthood of Hinduism is two-fold. One set of priests, called
purohits, are merely the celebrants at worship and ceremonies; the
second set, called gurus, theoretically more highly honoured, are or
were the religious teachers of the people. Among Mahomedans there is a
somewhat similar two-fold priesthood, although among them doctrine is
not divorced from religious worship and ritual. But in Christianity we
have not specialised so far. A Christian clergyman, as we know, holds
both offices; he is both the religious teacher and the celebrant at
sacraments, etc. In Hinduism, with these two sets of priests entirely
separate, it is evident that a change may take place in the creed
without the due performance of the Hindu ritual being affected. A
striking instance of the divergence of guru from purohit is given by Sir
Monier Williams in another connection. In India, he says, no temples are
more common than those containing the symbol of the God Siva--there are
said to be thirty million symbols of Siva scattered over India--yet
among gurus there is scarcely one in a hundred whose vocation is to
impart the mantra (the saving text) of Siva.[69] It has already been
explained how the creed of Hinduism is dissolving while its practices
remain; to restate the fact otherwise now--The hereditary purohits