OF THE HINDUSo 



129 



order to convey the idea of being as it were her followers and friends, a cha- 

 racter obviously incompatible with the difference of sex, they assume 

 the female garb, and adopt not only the dress and ornaments, but the 

 manners and occupations of women : the preposterous nature of this assump- 

 tion is too apparent, even to Hindu superstition, to be regarded with any 

 sort of respect by the community, and, accordingly, the SaJc'hi JBkdvas are of 

 little repute, and very few in number : they occasionally lead a mendicant life, 

 but are rarely met with : it is said that the only place where they are to be 

 found, in any number, is Jaypur : there are a few at Benares, and a fe'w in 

 Bengal, 



CHARAN DASIS. 



Another Vaishna'va sect conforming with the last, in the worship of 

 Rddhd and Krishna^ was instituted by Charan Das, a merchant o? i\\e DJmsar 

 tribe, who resided at Dehli in the reign of the second Alemgir. Their doc- 

 trines of universal emanation, are much the same as those of the Vedanta 

 school, although they correspond with the Vaishnava sects in maintaining the 

 great source of all things, or Brahme, to be Krishna : reverence of the GiirUf 

 and assertion of the pre-eminence of faith, above every other distinction, are 

 also common to them with other Vaishnava sects, from whom, probably, they 

 only differ in requiring no particular qualification of caste, order, nor even of 

 sex, for their teachers : they affirm, indeed, that originally they differed from 

 other sects of Vaislmavas, in worshipping no sensible representations of the deity, 

 and in excluding even the Tulasi plant and SdlagrdmstonQ from their devotions : 

 they have, however, they admit, recently adopted them, in order to maintain a 

 friendly intercourse with the followers of RXm an and: another peculiarity in their 

 system is the importance they attach to morality, and they do not acknowledge 

 faith to be independant of works : actions, they maintain, invariably meet 



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