But Hinduism still lives on with a marvellous and self-renewing power. Two great divine figures have been set beside the original creative Brahma, representatives of the forces that preserve and destroy, Vishnu and Çiva (p. 128). Vishnu succeeded to the place of the Buddha; and Hindu religion gave prominence in him to the conception of a Divine Person who out of love for man assumed human shape to conquer evil and establish truth. The worship of Çiva has been carried everywhere by the Brahmans; if he destroys, he also reproduces; he, too, appears to bless and help, and the Tamil poets of South India in the early Middle Ages sang his praises in hymns that still feed the piety of the people. Again and again reforming teachers have initiated movements on behalf of spiritual religion. Their followers have multiplied and broken up into sects, but still remain within the general area of the ancestral faith, which now embraces considerably more than 200 million souls. The disciples of Nānak (1469-1538), however, known as Sīkhs, formed into a semi-military organisation by the Guru Gobind "the Lion" (1675-1708), retain their religious independence, {63} touching Hinduism on one side and Mohammedanism on the other. They number at the present day more than two millions, and are found almost exclusively in the Punjab. China, like India, illustrates the principle of religious continuity. Its earliest historic date is fixed by an eclipse in 776 B.C.; and the traditions of its dynasties stretch more than a thousand years beyond. The ancient religion depicted in the books known as the _Shu_ and the _Shî Kings_, which Confucius (550-478 B.C.) was supposed to have edited out of much older documents, rested upon the solemn order of the living Heaven and Earth, with multitudinous ranks of associated spirits, and the generations of the dead. This has remained the formal basis of the national religion (p. 97). Meanwhile the ethical sayings of Confucius acquired extraordinary ascendency. They formed the chief element in the national education, and supplied the ideals of popular culture. Carried into Japan in the sixth century of our era, they filled a gap in the old Japanese teaching, which we know by the name of Shin-To or "Spirits' way." Confucius himself became the object of general commemorative homage; and annual ceremonies are still celebrated in his honour with great splendour in the Confucian temples which adorn every city within the empire above a certain rank.[2] [2] These are at present in danger, like other public forms of Chinese State Religion, of being rudely abolished. {64}