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Out of the works of Visvanatha Baba who has systematically portrayed the teachings of the sect on a scholarly way, emerges a completely differently picture. Here, for instance, the use of the Ekakara Mantra is strictly rejected and the entire connection with the medieval Oriya tradition is played down as much as possible. Visvanatha Baba takes the credentials of Panchasakha and Bhima Bhoi only to establish that I their works the advent of the eschatological deliverer is announced whose description corresponds with Mahima Svami, who for him is a final manifestation of this entire Kalpa, but beyond this herefers to sanskrits texts of the Vedanta school on the one hand (to sankara, if at all possible) and to the Bhagavadgita or the Bhagabata Purana and he prefers the Sanskrit text rather than their widely circulated Oriya translations. In this selection, an attempt whether conscious or unconscious, is evident to dissociate the Mahima Dharma teachings from the regional esoteric traditions and substantiate these from Sanskrit tradition. The attitude of Visvanatha Baba towards the tradition is thus fundamentally different from that of Bhima Bhoi, where as the latter remained with in the Panchasakha tradition, wrote in their style etc., for Visvanatha Baba the tradition only serves to prove the correctness of Mahima Dharma teachings in which the whole tradition has found its fulfillment.       This attitude towards the tradition makes it possible for Visvanatha Baba to take simultaneously into consideration totally different elements for the justification of this teachings which, strictly speaking, seem to contradict each other. Once he tries to identify, as much as possible the Mahima doctrine with the Vedanta. For this purpose he stresses the difference between Mahima and Sunya Brahma. Sunya Brhama alone is Nirguna21 , Mahima is Saguna, i.e. united with the Sunya Brahma so inseparably as the rays with the sun, but still dependent on it.       If this demarcation of Saguna Mahima from Nirguna Sunya Brahma really means an approach to the Vedanta, there still remains a decisive difference to which Kar has pointed out. The world and the individual soul are not illusory, but have during the course of creation, a limited character of reality: the term maya used to mean illusion as well as "energy" with which Alekha Parama Brahma starts out of himself the creation as a play.       The doctrine of creation does not correspond to the Vedanta, but rather to the doctrine of creation of the theistic Sankhya in the special stamping as represented by the Bhagavata Purana, the Ahirbudhnya- Samhita and other Vaisnava texts, which proceed from equating Brahma or Narayana with the one supreme paurusa, who pervades all, brings about all experiences and has brought forth the creation our of himself with the energy of his maya (sakti maya).22 In these texts, the term sunyata (sunyata-rupini) occurs to define the original form of Visnu's energy.       The connection with the theistic Sankhya which is not expressed by Visvanatha Baba, but is veiled on the contrary with an approximation to the Vedanta, also appears in the position Visvanatha Baba concedes to Mahima Svami. It is out of the       With this dress they assemble they assemble, after the bath around 4 in the morning on the eastern side of the Gaddi Mandira in the portion surrounded by a wall above the samadhi of Mahima Svami which one otherwise does not enter. Under the direction of one of the Niti Babas they get rid of their old loincloth, throw it high across the wall, raise the new dress towards the sky with the loud shout "Alekha" and then put it on. Thereafter they perform Sarana and Darsana at all the four doors of the three temples and then move to the older Para Samnyasis in order to get their blessings.       The initiation for Para Samnyasis is said to be performed in the like manner; during my stay so such initiation took place. The institution of such initiations, accessible to all castes, is without any doubt, both an "anti-Brahmanic" element and an approximation to Brahmanic rites, found mores often in the sect's rite. Constitutive for the status of a Brahmin is, indeed not only the birth, but just so the rite of initiation- originally a privilege of the three higher castes- which every young Brahmin has to go through. A specially striking parallel is the Kaupina and the twisted belt: the Nambutiri Brahmin too gets this clothing at the initiation (Sanskrit: Upanayan) and he ought to have it on during Brahmacharya up to marriage.23 21 See Nirguna Mahatmya, chapter iv. 22 See also : Surendranath Dasgupta: A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. IV, Cambridge, 1966, p.32ff. 23 E. Thurston: "Castes and Tribes of Southern India", Vol. I, Madras, 1909, p.274 ff.

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