Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 4.djvu/280

BHABRA. however, to practise the same penances enjoined by Hindoos, though they take the vows of continence. They are content with extremely minute and tedious ritualistic observances, which, in their constant observance, must amount to a severe penance in themselves.

It is not believed that the Jain faith makes any progress in India, perhaps the contrary. As Jains can rejoin Hindooism in the grade to which they belong, on payment of a caste fine, and ceremonies of submission, Jains are held, though schismatics, to observe the rules of caste, and to be pure, when other schismatics are utterly corrupt. With most professing Jains, however, there is the utmost contempt for Brahmins and Brahminical Hmdooism, a remnant of that fierce fanaticism which formerly distingniished both, and which, after a frightful struggle for supremacy, ended in the triumph of the Brahmins in all parts of India, probably about the seventh or eighth century.