'ISi 



RELIGIOUS SECTS 



and entered that of the Sanydsiy or the ascetic life : their practices are, in some 

 other respects, peculiar : they never touch metals nor fire, and subsist upon 

 food obtained as alms from the family Brahmans of the Sri Vaishnava faith 

 alone: they are of a less erratic disposition than most other mendicants, and 

 are rarely met with in upper India : they are found in considerable numbers, 

 and of high character, in the south : in their general practices, their religious 

 worship, and philosophical tenets, they conform to the institutes and doctrines 

 of Ramanuja, 



V A I R A G I S. 



The term Valrdgt implies a person devoid of passion,* and is there- 

 ' fore correctly applicable to every religious mendicant, who affects to have 

 estranged himself from the interests and emotions of mankind. Virakta, 

 the dispassionate, and AvadhiUa, the liberated, have a similar import, and are 

 therefore equally susceptible of a general application : they are, indeed, soused 

 in many cases, but it is more usual to attach a more precise sense to the 

 . terms, and to designate by them the mendicant Vaishnavas of the Rdmdnandi 

 clasSj or its ramifications, as the disciples of Kabir, Dadu, and others. 



The ascetic order of the Rdmdnandi Vaishnavas, is considered to have 



been instituted especially by the twelfth disciple of Ramanand, Sri Anand : 



they profess perpetual poverty and continence, and subsist upon alms : the 



, greater number of them are erratic, and observe no form of worship, but they 



are also residents in the Mafhs of their respective orders,! and the spi- 



* From Vi privative prefix, and Rdga passion. 



f The Rdmdnandi Vairdgis, although indigenous in upper India, have established themselves 

 in the Dekhin, as mentioned by Buchanan, (Mysore, 2. 76.) the account he gives there of the Dekhini 



