100 RELIGIOUS SECTS 



Pada l.'^-Oh, sovereign Ranach'hor, give me" to make DwdraJcd my abode : with thy 

 sheJI, discus, mace, and Jotus, dispel the fear of Yama : eternal rest is visiting thy sacred 

 shrines; supreme delight is the clash of thy shell and cymbals : I have abandoned my love, 

 my possessions, my principality, my husband. Mir a, thy servant, comes to thee for refuge, 

 oh, take her wholly to thee. 



Pada 2. — If thou knowest me free from stain, so accept me : save thee, there is none 

 other that will show me compassion : do thou, then, have mercy upon me : let not weariness, 

 hunger, anxiety, and restlessness, consume this frame with momentary decay. Lord of 

 MiRA, GiRDHARA her beloved, accept her, and never let her be separated from thee. 



BRAHMA SAMPRADAYIS, or MADHWACHARIS. 



This division of the Vaislinavas is altogether unknown in Gangetic 

 Hindustan. A few individuals belonging to it, who are natives of southern 

 India, may be occasionally encountei'ed, but they are not sufficiently nume- 

 rous to form a distinct community, nor have they any temple or teachers of 

 their own. It is in the peninsula, that the sect is most extensively to be 

 found, and it is not comprised, therefore, in the scope of this sketch : as, how- 

 ever, it is acknowledged to be one of the four great Sampradayas^ or religi- 

 ous systems, such brief notices of it as have been collected will not be 

 wholly out of place. 



The institution of this sect is posterior to that of the Sii Vaislinavas, or 

 Ramanujas: the founder was Madhwachary a,* a Brahman, the sonof Madhige,' 



* In the Sarvadersana SangraJia he is cited by the name Puma Prajna — a work is also quot- 

 ed as written by him under the name of Medhya Mandira. Reference is also made to him by the 

 title, most frequently found in the works ascribed to him, of Ananda Tirtha. 



