"Let us sing the thousand names of the One who has no name, no form, nothing"), and though we may accept this form and that symbol for worship and practice (Sadhana), yet we. hold rigidly to the principle that God is not man, covered by ignorance and matter, and God cannot be born as man, and clothed with Prakriti qualities. The rigid acceptance of this one principle alone, that God is Aja,

*cf., "Be still and know that I am God. - " Book of Psalms.

(cannot be born) ought to distinguish and elevate the Siddhanta from all other forms of Religion. And the rigid acceptance of this one principle alone must prevent it from its degenerating into a superstition, and base idolatry, and man and fetish-worship. One great obstacle to the due recognition of the excellence of the Siddhanta is the obstacle thrown by certain names. We use certain names as denoting God and as comprising the characteristic attributes which we clothe Him with. But how can we help it? We cannot forget our language, and its past traditions; we cannot forget our religious past, however we might try; and we cannot therefore coin new names, simply because some others want us to do so. And what need is there for doing so either? If we use certain names, they were so used by 90 per cent of the Indian population for the last 30 centuries at least; they were so used in the days of the Puranas and Itihasas, they were so used in the days of the Upanishat writers, and they were so used in the days of the Vedic writers. And some of these Mantras and texts have been used in the daily prayer of everybody.

The publishers of "The Theosophy of the Upanishats" recommend to us the following mantra from the Taittirya Upanishat for our daily prayer:

"Satyam Jnanam Anantam Brahma Anandarupam Amritam yad vibhuti Santam Sivam, Advaitam."

And what is there sectarian about the word "Sivam" herein? Evan an Upanishat of the Type of Ramatapini' has this text with the same word, (quoting as it does the above Mantra of course),

"Sivam, Santam, Advaitam, Chaturtham manyante".

There is one thing about the word "Sivam". Sanskrit scholars say that the word in this form is not a neuter noun but simply an adjective, and accordingly translate it as gracious, benignant &c; but it is remarkable that this word is always used in the Rig-Veda and other Vedas' and Upanishats in conjunction with the word Rudra, Sankara,

Bhava, etc, and that to denote the same personality and not any other. However this may be, the word Sivam is used, clearly in Tamil as the neuter Form of Siva or Sivan as Paramof Para or Paran, as Brahmam of Brahmanwith no change of meaning in either form

That this accounts for the frequent change from one gender to another in describing the Supreme Being, even in the same Mantra, as in the Svetasvatara, we have already pointed out. That all these names are also declinable in the feminine gender without change of meaning we have also pointed out elsewhere. Whether we say Siva, Sivam, or Siva; Sankara, Sankaram or Sankari; Para; Param; or Para; we denote the samel Supreme Personality. We use these words, and in these forms/ of gender, as these are all the forms or symbols we perceive in the material universe. To us, therefore, these names are mere names and nothing more; and we affix therefore no greater importance to one form in preference to another. Though Professor Max Muller would prefer to call God, in the neuter, "It" and think it a higher name, we are thoroughly indifferent as to calling the supreme, as He, She or It; and we accordingly with St. Manikkavachaka praise God, as

"Behold! He is the male and the female and the neuter."

* And yet consider the following lines from the same 'utterance.'

"My Father! He became man, woman, and hermaphrodite, the Akas, and Fire and this final Cause, and tvanscending all these forms, stands the Supreme Siva, of the Body glowing like the flame of the forest. He is my Lord and the King of Gods ".

"He became, 'He' and 'She' and 'It' and the Earth and Heaven, and is different from all these said stands as my dear Blessedness."

These lines will be found repeated often and often in the Tiru-vachakam, Tevaram and every other sacred writing in Tamil. Can similar lines be quoted from writers of any other school? We dare say, not. But the older Upanishats contain similar thoughts, and that only proves our contention that the Siddhanta school but barely represents to day the oldest traditions, and is the inheritor of the most ancient Philosophy. Of all Indian preachers, it was the late matakhandana Venkatagiri Sastrin that used to dwell on this universal aspect of the Siddhanta in respect of naming Him as 'He', 'She' and 'It', and he used to point out that all names of Siva are declinable in all the three genders without change of meaning, whereas other names do not admit of this change, and even if they do, the word is meaningless or means something else. We do not know why some people prefer the neuter form to the masculine or feminine, when, in fact, it stands to reason that the male and female represent in each the perfection of organized and organic form, much more so than the neuter forms. If by calling Him, † 'It', we mean to emphasize that God is sexless, we must also insist that God is genderiess, and that he cannot be spoken of in the neuter gender.