1840,] On the Creed, Customs and Literature of the Jangamx. 157 



tendency of these two books is thus discriminated. The puranam is 

 the Bhacti canda : or attributes every gift to the force of faith. The 

 Li!a is ihe jnaua canda, or assigns wisdom to be the means of attaining 

 future happiness. 



The Chenna Basava Piiran, the Mari Basava Puran, and many more 

 Jangania legends found under various names in Tehigu and Canarese 

 (nearly all of which are to be found in the Mackenzie Library) do not 

 merit much notice. They are free from the pride, cruelty and abomina- 

 tions that disgust the Englisli reader in the braminical puranis, but are 

 merely wild vagaries of which more than enough may be seen in 

 the Basava Puran. With slight variations they all run in one strain : 

 that a certain saint out of love to Siva vows to earn money in 

 some particular mode, and he then bestows it on Jangams, and be- 

 comes their servant. Accordingly Siva appears to him, and carries him 

 to Cailasa. On other occasions a " worthy" cuts otf his wife's hands 

 or nose because she presumed to touch or smell flowers which he was 

 about to offer to the lingam in adoration : Siva as usual appears, heals 

 her, and carries the pious pair to Cailas. There are miracles in abun- 

 dance, and some of them very entertaining. 



There are other volumes inculcating the yoga system (tatwa bodha) 

 which to our ideas is strange bewildering nonsense. Herein there is 

 but one system, common to al^, whether Bramins or their opponents. 

 For this unmeaning mysticism pervades every sect of the Hindus, and 

 is analogous to the Sufi reveries known among Musulmans,* and to the 

 mysticism promulgated in France and Germany by the followers of 

 Bourignon and Swedenborg. To lose one's senses ( cum ratione in- 

 sanire, as Terence says) seems to be its highest aim. Hindus who 

 pretend to learning are fond of dealing in these idle topics, for the 

 purpose of astonishing their hearers, but we shall find that their stock 

 of phrases is soon acquired, and their fund of ideas is yet more slender. 



The great theme perpetually reiterated by the Jangams as well as 

 by all the other followers of the reformer Sancar Achari is the re- 

 solving our body and mind into spirit. That the a^ma (soul) <o be 



* Vide Malcolm's Persia, vol. 2, chap. xxii. and Sir William Jones's Essay on Mystical 

 poetry. See also Extracts by Sir William Jones, from Baxter in the Madras Journal, 

 for October 1836, p. 448. In Telugu the favourite work on the Yoga Sastrara is the 

 Vasu Deva Mananam. It does not appear that Basava encouraged such reveries. 



This mystic science is indeed an unfathomable profundity of nonsense, such as we 

 may find in the Rabbinical Targum. (Vide Schcettgen and Adam Clarke on 1 Cor. 

 XV. 44). In the Siddheswara Satacam (lately printed in Telugu), and other volumes 

 of devotion, the soul as a female addresses the deity as her lover and husband: as is 

 often the mode of address used among the Persian Sufis (vide Madras Journal, vol. 5, 

 p. 129). 



