Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 2.djvu/174

 BAIRAGI. UN SOOKH DOSS—103—is a Bairagi or Hindoo religious mendicant. Has dark eyes, and white hair, Avears a cloth about his loins, and a basket cap on his head. He is a resident of Fyzabad in Oude, and has been dragged from thence to the Mela-Magh Fair at Allahabad.

He is one of the class sometimes, but improperly, called Fakir, who live by charity, is forty-two years of age, and was born with his legs behind his back, as shewn in the photograph. He will not eat animal food, but is not very particular about the other observances of his religion.

Baiagis (Hindoo) and Fakirs (Mahomedan), religious mendicants, abound in the vicinity of Fyzabad, where some eleemosynary institutions, generally managed by some one or more of the order, are maintained by the wealthier land-holders for their support. One large establishment near the city of Awadli has a revenue of more than 50,000 rupees. It was instituted by Shooja-ood-dowla, himself a Mussulman, for the exclusive use and behoof of Hindoo religious mendicants (bairagis). No Mussulman is allowed to enter its Avails, and the revenues are absorbed by about 500 resident and itinerant bairagis, who under the authority of their malik or abbot, manage the estates themselves, taking a moderate rent, which is never augmented.—''Butter, Topog. of Oude'', p 163.