Mr. Principal, Prof. Mukherjee, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The subject "Theism in Orissa" has been somehow imposed to me by our venerated chief guest. It is actually his subject, not mine. Orissa had a important school of Theism of its own. It was somehow discovered by our distinguished chief guest.

It was he who in his celebrated book "History of Medieval Vaishnavism in Orissa" pointed out the genuine peculiarities of Theism in Orissa, the Vaishnava School of the famous Panchasakha, was believed to be just an obsolete form of Buddhism. The sincerity of the Panchasakha was questioned. The peculiarity of their thought not being rightly understood they were supposed to have assumed Vaishnavism only as a disguise, in order to escape trouble, while in reality remaining Buddhists.

The book of Prof. P. Mukherjee which, first printed in 1940, badly needs a new edition, for the first time pointed the true character of Medieval Vaishnavism in Orissa as important theological school of its own with an original and peculiar theistic speculation. From this, what we may rightly call a discovery, all further studies in the History of Religions of Orissa had to start and developed the point. All I can do, is to add one particular and from this, what we may rightly call a discovery, all further studies in the History of Religions of Orissa had to start and developed the point. All I can do, is to add one particular and limited aspect to the history of Theism in Orissa from the viewpoint of my particular field of investigation.

Theism is derived from the Greek word THEOS = God and just means the worship of or the faith in gods. Compounds of this word are the well known concepts of monotheism and atheism. The term monotheism has added the Greek MONOS, one=and means the belief in one God. In Greek like in Sanskrit as an 'a' before a word means its negation, therefore, Atheism has come to mean something like the negation of all religious belief or nonbelief in transcendence. Because of this development of the word a new term had to be found to designate religions or philosophies, which while believing in a transcendent reality still do not represent the highest form of this reality as personal entity. Such system may be designed as "non-theistic". One eminent German Sanskrit Scholar, Heinrich Zimmer, suggested the term "transtheistic" to describe the system of Jainism, where Gods are admitted and believed in, but only to a certain and very limited degree, them having to be overcome in true moksha. "trans", the first part of this word "transtheistic" is a Latin preposition and means "through the Gods". This word is by the way also present in the term "transcendence", where it is combined with the Latin verb "cedere" "to go". "transcendence" therefore literally means "to go" or "to pass through".

Perhaps it has become already clear from these scattered remarks, that Indian Religions may be both theistic and non trans-theistic speculations. This is indeed a special and fascinating feature of all the Indian Religions. In Hinduism, and also in later Buddhism, both these elements are present, and continuously influence each other.

Generally speaking the term "transtheism" could also be applied to the classical Advaita-system, where the Gods, though of course active and present are transcendent by the impersonal Brahman, which is to be attained in salvation. Theistic Speculation, as a need not say, has reached its highest development in theistic Sankhya and in sthe different Vaishnava Schools, were the personal God is conceived as the highest reality. In Hinduism therefore, Theism and Vaishnavism are to a certain extent synonimous.