RELIGIOUS SECTS OF THE HINDUS. 303 



They borrow, however, their notions of creation from the Veddnta phi- 

 losophy, or rather from the modified form in which it is adapted to vulgar 

 apprehension. Worldly existence is illusion, or the work of Maya, the 

 primitive character of Bhavan!, the wife of Siva. They recognise accord- 

 ingly the whole Hindu Pantheon— and, although they profess to worship 

 but one God, pay reverence to what they consider manifestations of his 

 nature visible in the Avatars, particularly Rama and Krishna. 



Unlike the Sddhs also, they use distinctive marks, and wear a double 

 string of silk bound round the right wrist. Frontal lines are not invari- 

 ably employed, but some make a perpendicular streak with ashes of a 

 burnt offering made to Hanuman. 



Their moral code is something like that of all Hindu quietists, 

 and enjoins indifference to the world, its pleasures or its pains, implicit 

 devotion to the spiritual guide, clemency and gentleness, rigid adherence 

 to truth, the discharge of all ordinary, social, or religious obligations, 

 and the hope of final absorption into the one spirit which pervades all 

 things. 



There is little or no difference therefore in essentials between the 

 Satndmis and some of the Vaishnava unitarians, but they regard them- 

 selves as a separate body, and have their own founder Jagjivan Das. He 

 was a Kshetriya by birth, and continued in the state of Grihastha, or 

 house-holder, through life : he was a native of Oude, and his Samddh, or 

 shrine, is shewn at Kativa, a place between Lucknow and Ajudhya. He 

 wrote several tracts, as the Jnydn Prakds, Mahdpralaya, and Prathama 

 Granlha: they are in Hindi couplets ; the first is dated in Sambat 1817, or 

 A. D. 1701, the last is in the form of a dialogue between Siva and Parvati. 

 The following is from the Mahdpralaya. 



