56 RELIGIOUS SECTS 



time Ferishta has noticed, that some religious disputes, possibly connected 

 with the history of Kabir, or that of some of his disciples, did occur. 



These circumstances, connected with the acknowledged date of his death, 

 render it exceedingly probable that Kabir flourished about the beginning of 

 the 15th century — and as it is also not unlikely that his innovations were con- 

 nected with the previous exertions of Ramanand, consequently that teacher 

 must have lived about the end of the 14<th. 



According to one account, Kabir was originally named Jnydnu the 

 knowing or wise. The Musselmans, it is said, claim him as one of their persua- 

 tion, but his conversancy with the Hindu Sdstras, and evidently limited 

 knowledge of the Mohammedan authorities in matters of religion, render 

 such a supposition perfectly unwarrantable : at any rate tradition represents 

 it to have occasioned a contest between them and the Hindus respecting the 

 disposal of his corpse, the latter insisting on burning, the Musselmans, on bu- 

 rying it 5 in the midst of the dispute, Kabir himself appeared amongst them, 

 and desiring them to look under the cloth supposed to cover his mortal 

 remains, immediately vanished : on obeying his instructions, they found 



worldly possessions, but to set father, and son, and brother, at deadly variance:" he returned to his 

 abode, and remained unmolested. 



Colonel Malcolm in the note before cited, places him in the reign of Shir Shah ; this is, 

 however, at variance with his own statements; Nanak was in the heighth of his career in 1527, 

 (A. R. XL 206.) then imparting to Baber, tenets which he had partly borrowed from the writings of 

 Kabir, and which must consequently have been some time previously promulgated : but Shir Shah 

 did not commence his reign till 1542, and it was therefore impossible for Kabir to have lived in his 

 reign, and at the same time to have instigated by his own innovations, the more successful ones of 

 Nanak. Kabir's being contemporary with Sekander, is also mentioned in Priya Dasa's expan- 

 sion of the Hlwkta Mala.: it is likewise stated in the Kholasset al tawdrikh, and is finally established 

 by Abulfazl, who says that Kabir the Unitarian, lived in the reign of Sultan Secander Lodi, 

 (Ay: Ac: 2.38.) 



