136 RELIGIOUS SECTS 



their excess of zeal, they carry their secession from ordinary manners so far, 

 as to leave off every kind of covering, and, as their name signifies, go naked; 

 there are, however, otiier points in which they differ from the general charac- 

 ter of Hindu mendicants, and they are unquestionably the most worthless and 

 profligate members of their respective religions. 



A striking proof of their propensities is their use of arms. They always 

 travel with weapons, usually a matchlock and sword and shield, and that these 

 implements are not carried in vain has been shewn on various occasions : the 

 sanguinary conflicts of opposite sects of Hindu mendicants, have been des- 

 cribed in several publications, with the customary indistinctness as to the 

 parties concerned : these parties are the VaisJmava and Saiva Nagas chiefly, 

 assisted and probably instigated by the Vairdgi and Sanydsi members of those 

 two sects, and aided by abandoned characters from all the schisms connected 

 respectively with the one or the other:* it would, however, be doing an in- 

 justice to the mendicant orders of any sect, ta;*suppose that they are univer- 

 sally or even generally implicated in these atrocious affrays. 



* As. Res. vi. 317, and xii. 455 ; an occurrence of a similar nature is recorded by the author 

 of the Dabistan, who mentions, that in 1050 of the Hijra, a severe conflict took place at Dwaraka, 

 between a set of Vaishnava ascetics termed Mundis, from shaving their heads, and the Sanyasis, in 

 which a great number of the former were slain. 



