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flesh is forbidden. Raja Debi Bakhsh, late solemnities in his honour taluqdar of Gonda, married in this family, and on the occasion of his marriage he was entertained as a guest together with his whole suite. But he declined their hospitality unless served with flesh. The Sattnamis at last prepared a curry of baingan, pronounced a prayer upon it, and when served out it was found to be flesh from thenceforth the Sattnamis renounced the eating of baingan as a thing convertible into meat. The bible of this sect is a book called " Agh Binas," composed by Jagjiwan Das. It is in verse and believed to be inspired it, however, conit prescribes certains stories from the Purans, as also lessons on morals tain rules of piety, and contains lessons on ethics and divinity, being all This work is in Hindi. extracts from Sanskrit works on the Hindu religion.

.







In Ambala, in the Panjab, there is a Sattnami gaddi founded by Gambhir Das, a disciple of B aba Jagjiwan Das, and at Amritsar there is another founded by Shiva Das. Among the disciples of Baba Jagiiwan Das there was one of the low caste of Kori, who converted Chamars and other low Hence almost all classes of the Hindus follow caste Hindus to the faith. this faith, and there is hardly a town in India without Sattnamis. The Sattnamis profess to adore the true name alone, the one God, the cause and creator of all things, the Nirgtin, or void of sensible qualities, without beginning or end.

They borrow, however, their notions of creation from the Vedanta philosophy, or rather from the modified forms in which it is adapted to vulgar apprehension. Worldly existence is illusion, or the work of Maya, the primitive character of Bhaw^ni, the wife of Shiva. They recognize accordingly 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.

TJnlike the Sadhus, they use distinctive marks, and wear a double thread of silk round the right wrist. Tikas are not universally employed, but some mark a perpendicular streak on the forehead with ashes of a burnt offering

made

to

Hanoman.

is much the same as that of all Hindu ascetics, and enjoins indifference to the world, its pleasures or its pains ; 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 with all things.

Their moral code

There is thus little or no difference in essentials between the Sattnamis and some of the Vaishnavi sectaries, but they regard themselves as a separate body, and boast of their own founder, Jagjiwan Das.

He wrote several

as the Inyan Prahds, Mahd Praldya, and are in Hindi couplets the first is dated Sambat the last is in the form of a dialogue between Shiva

tracts,

Pratham Grantha ; they 1817, or A.D. 1761





and Parbati. His father, Ganga Ram, was a Chandel proprietor of mauza Sardaha, pargana Bado Sarai, whose guriib was Bisheshwar Puri Gosh^in, a resident of Guseri, in the trans-Gogra estate of Guwarich,