472 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1813. 



Acuities to the inquirer, than the 

 reh'gion of the Sikhs. We meet 

 with a creed of pure deism, 

 giounded on the most sublime ge- 

 neral truths, blended with the be- 

 lief of all the absurdities of the 

 Hindu mythology, and the fables 

 of Muhammedanism ; for Nanac 

 professed a desire to reform, not 

 to destroy, the religion of the tribe 

 in which he was born; and, ac- 

 tuated by the great and benevo- 

 lent design of reconciling the jar- 

 ing faiths of Brahma and Muham- 

 med, he endeavoured to conciliate 

 both Hindus and Moslems to 

 his doctrine, by persuading them 

 to reject those parts of their re- 

 spective beliefs and usages, which, 

 he contended, were unworthy of 

 that God wliom they both adored. 

 He called upon the Hindus to 

 abandon the worship of idols, and 

 to return to that pure devotion of 

 the Deity, in which their religion 

 originated. He called upon the 

 Muhammedans to abstain from 

 practices, like the slaughter of 

 cows, that were offensive to the 

 religion of the Hindus, and to 

 cease from the persecution of that 

 race. He adopted, in order to 

 conciliate them, many of the max- 

 ims which he had learnt from 

 mendicants who professed the 

 principles of the Sufi sect; and he 

 constantly referred to the admired 

 writings of the celebrated Muham- 

 medan Kabir, who was a professed 

 Sufi, and who inculcated the doc- 

 trine of the equality of the rela- 

 tion of all created beings to their 

 Creator. Nanac endeavoured, with 

 all the power of his own genius, 

 aided by such authorities, to im- 

 press both Hindus and Muhamme- 

 dans wiih a love of toleration and 

 an abhorrence of war; and his 



life was as peaceable as his doC' 

 trine. He appears, indeed, to have 

 adopted, from the hour in which 

 he abandoned his worldly occupa- 

 tions to that of his death, the ha- 

 bits practised by that crowd of 

 holy mendicants, Sanyasis and 

 Fakirs, with whom India swarms. 

 He conformed to their customs; 

 and his extraordinary austerities 

 are a constant theme of praise 

 with his followers. His works are 

 all in praise of God ; but he treats 

 the polytheism of the Hindus with 

 respect, and even veneration. He 

 never shows a disposition to de- 

 stroy the fabric, but only wishes 

 to divest it of its useless tinsel 

 and false ornaments, and to es- 

 tablish its complete dependence 

 upon the great Creator of the uni- 

 verse. He speaks every where of 

 Muhammed, and his successors, 

 with moderation ; but animadverts 

 boldly on what he conceives to be 

 their errors; and, above all, on 

 their endeavours to propagate their 

 faith by the sword. 



As Nanac made no material 

 invasion of either the civil or re- 

 ligious usages of the Hindus, and 

 as his only desire was, to restore a 

 nation who had degenerated from 

 their original pure worship into 

 idolatry, he may be considered 

 more in the light of a reformer 

 than of a subverter of the Hindu 

 religion ; and those Sikhs who ad- 

 here to his tenets, without admit- 

 ting those of Guru Govind, are 

 hardly to be distinguislied from 

 the great mass of Hindu popula- 

 tion ; among whom there are many 

 sects who differ much more than, 

 that of N4nac, from the general 

 and orthodox worship at present 

 establitihed in India. 



The first successors of Ndnac 



d 



