The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Part 23

Smarta Sect

_Smarta Sect_.--This is an orthodox Hindu sect, the members of which are largely Brahmans. The name is derived from Smriti or tradition, a name given to the Hindu sacred writings, with the exception of the Vedas, which last are regarded as a divine revelation. Members of the sect wors.h.i.+p the five deities, Siva, Vishnu, Suraj or the sun, Ganpati and Sakti, the divine principle of female energy corresponding to Siva. They say that their sect was founded by Shankar Acharya, the great Sivite reformer and opponent of Buddhism, but this appears to be incorrect. Shankar Acharya himself is said to have believed in one unseen G.o.d, who was the first cause and sole ruler of the universe; but he countenanced for the sake of the weaker brethren the wors.h.i.+p of orthodox Hindu deities and of their idols.

Swami-Narayan Sect

1. The founder.

_Swami-Narayan Sect._ [397]--This, one of the most modern Vaishnava sects, was founded by Sahajanand Swami, a Sarwaria Brahman, born near Ajodhia in the United Provinces in A.D. 1780. At an early age he became a religious mendicant, and wandered all over India, visiting the princ.i.p.al shrines. When twenty years old he was made a Sadhu of the Ramanandi order, and soon nominated as his successor by the head of the order. He preached with great success in Gujarat, and though his tenets do not seem to have differed much from the Ramanandi creed, his personal influence was such that his followers founded a new sect and called it after him. He proclaimed the wors.h.i.+p of one sole deity, Krishna or Narayana, whom he identified with the sun, and apparently his followers held, and he inclined to believe himself, that he was a fresh incarnation of Vishnu. It is said that he displayed miraculous powers before his disciples, entrancing whomsoever he cast his eyes upon, and causing them in this mesmeric state (Samadhi) to imagine they saw Sahajanand as Krishna with yellow robes, weapons of war, and other characteristics of the G.o.d, and to behold him seated as chief in an a.s.sembly of divine beings.

2. Tenets of the sect.

His creed prohibited the destruction of animal life; the use of animal food and intoxicating liquors or drugs on any occasion; promiscuous intercourse with the other s.e.x; suicide, theft and robbery, and false accusations. Much good was done, the Collector testified, by his preaching among the wild Kolis of Gujarat; [398] his morality was said to be far better than any which could be learned from the Shastras; he condemned theft and bloodshed; and those villages and Districts which had received him, from being among the worst, were now among the best and most orderly in the Province of Bombay. His success was great among the lower castes, as the Kolis, Bhils and Kathis. He was regarded by his disciples as the surety of sinners, his position in this respect resembling that of the Founder of Christianity. To Bishop Heber he said that while he permitted members of different castes to eat separately here below, in the future life there would be no distinction of castes. [399] His rules for the conduct of the s.e.xes towards each other were especially severe. No Sadhu of the Swami-Narayan sect might ever touch a woman, even the accidental touching of any woman other than a mother having to be expiated by a whole-day fast. Similarly, should a widow-disciple touch even a boy who was not her son, she had to undergo the same penalty. There were separate pa.s.sages for women in their large temples, and separate reading and preaching halls for women, attended by wives of the Acharyas or heads of the sect. These could apparently be married, but other members of the priestly order must remain single; while the lay followers lived among their fellows, pursuing their ordinary lives and avocations. The strictness of the Swami on s.e.xual matters was directed against the licentious practices of the Maharaj or Vallabhacharya order. He boldly denounced the irregularities they had introduced into their forms of wors.h.i.+p, and exposed the vices which characterised the lives of their clergy. This att.i.tude, as well as the prohibition of the wors.h.i.+p of idols, earned for him the hostility of the Peshwa and the Maratha Brahmans, and he was subjected to a considerable degree of persecution; his followers were taught the Christian doctrine of suffering injury without retaliation, and the devotees of hostile sects took advantage of this to beat them unmercifully, some being even put to death.

3. Meeting with Bishop Heber.

In order to protect the Swami, his followers const.i.tuted from themselves an armed guard, as shown by Bishop Heber's account of their meeting: "About eleven o'clock I had the expected visit from Swami-Narayan. He came in a somewhat different guise from all which I expected, having with him near 200 hors.e.m.e.n, mostly well-armed with matchlocks and swords, and several of them with coats of mail and spears. Besides them he had a large rabble on foot with bows and arrows, and when I considered that I had myself an escort of more than fifty horses and fifty muskets and bayonets, I could not help smiling, though my sensations were in some degree painful and humiliating, at the idea of two religious teachers meeting at the head of little armies, and filling the city which was the scene of their interview with the rattling of gunners, the clash of s.h.i.+elds and the tramp of the war-horse. Had our troops been opposed to each other, mine, though less numerous, would have been doubtless far more effective from the superiority of arms and discipline. But in moral grandeur what a difference was there between his troop and mine. Mine neither knew me nor cared for me; they escorted me faithfully and would have defended me bravely, because they were ordered by their superiors to do so. The guards of Swami-Narayan were his own disciples and enthusiastic admirers, men who had voluntarily repaired to hear his lessons, who now took a pride in doing him honour, and would cheerfully fight to the last drop of blood rather than suffer a fringe of his garment to be handled roughly.... The holy man himself was a middle-aged, thin and plain-looking person, about my own age, with a mild expression of countenance, but nothing about him indicative of any extraordinary talent. I seated him on a chair at my right hand and offered two more to the Thakur and his son, of which, however, they did not avail themselves without first placing their hands under the feet of their spiritual guide and then pressing them reverently to their foreheads."

4. Meeting with Governor of Bombay.

Owing, apparently, to the high moral character of his preaching and his success in reducing to order and tranquillity the turbulent Kolis and Bhils who accepted his doctrines, Swami-Narayan enjoyed a large measure of esteem and regard from the officers of Government. This will be evidenced from the following account of his meeting with the Governor of Bombay: [400] "On the receipt of the above two letters, Swami-Narayan Maharaj proceeded to Rajkote to visit the Right Honourable the Governor, and on the 26th February 1830 was escorted as a mark of honourable reception by a party of troops and military foot-soldiers to the Political Agent's bungalow, when His Excellency the Governor, the Secretary, Mr. Thomas Williamson, six other European gentlemen, and the Political Agent, Mr. Blane, having come out of the bungalow to meet the Swami-Narayan, His Excellency conducted the Swami, hand in hand, to a hall in the bungalow and made him sit on a chair. His Excellency afterwards with pleasure enquired about the principles of his religion, which were communicated accordingly. His Excellency also made a present to Swami-Narayan of a pair of shawls and other piece-goods. Swami-Narayan was asked by the Governor whether he and his disciples have had any harm under British rule; and His Excellency was informed in reply that there was nothing of the sort, but that on the contrary every protection was given them by all the officers in authority. His Excellency then asked for a code of the religion of Swami-Narayan, and the book called the s.h.i.+ksapatri was presented to him accordingly. Thus after a visit extending to an hour Swami-Narayan asked permission to depart, when he was sent back with the same honours with which he had been received, all the European officers accompanying him out of the door from the bungalow."

5. Conclusion.

The author of the above account is not given, and it apparently emanates from a follower of the saint, but there seems little reason to doubt its substantial accuracy, and it certainly demonstrates the high estimation in which he was held. After his death his disciples erected Chauras or resthouses and monuments to his memory in all the villages and beneath all the trees where he had at any time made any stay in Gujarat; and here he is wors.h.i.+pped by the sect. In 1901 the sect had about 300,000 adherents in Gujarat. In the Central Provinces a number of persons belong to it in Nimar, princ.i.p.ally of the Teli caste. The Telis of Nimar are anxious to improve their social position, which is very low, and have probably joined the sect on account of its liberal principles on the question of caste.

Vaishnava, Vishnuite Sect

1. Vishnu as representing the sun.

_Vaishnava, Vishnuite Sect_.--The name given to Hindus whose special deity is the G.o.d Vishnu, and to a number of sects which have adopted various special doctrines based on the wors.h.i.+p of Vishnu or of one of his two great incarnations, Rama and Krishna. Vishnu was a personification of the sun, though in ancient literature the sun is more often referred to under another name, as Savitri, Surya and Aditya. It may perhaps be the case that when the original sun-G.o.d develops into a supreme deity with the whole heavens as his sphere, the sun itself comes to be regarded as a separate and minor deity. His weapon of the _chakra_ or discus, which was probably meant to resemble the sun, supports the view of Vishnu as a sun-G.o.d, and also his _vahan_, the bird Garuda, on which he rides. This is the Brahminy kite, a fine bird with chestnut plumage and white head and breast, which has been considered a sea-eagle. Mr. Dewar states that it remains almost motionless at a great height in the air for long periods; and it is easy to understand how in these circ.u.mstances primitive people mistook it for the spirit of the sky, or the vehicle of the sun-G.o.d. It is propitious for a Hindu to see a Brahminy kite, especially on Sunday, the sun's day, for it is believed that the bird is then returning from Vishnu, whom it has gone to see on the previous evening. [401] A similar belief has probably led to the veneration of the eagle in other countries and its a.s.sociation with the G.o.d of the sky or heavens, as in the case of Zeus. Similarly the Gayatri, the most sacred Hindu prayer, is addressed to the sun, and it could hardly have been considered so important unless the luminary was identified with one of the greatest Hindu G.o.ds. Every Brahman prays to the sun daily when he bathes in the morning. Vishnu's character as the preserver and fosterer of life is probably derived from the sun's generative power, so conspicuous in India.

As the sun is seen to sink every night into the earth, so it was thought that he could come down to earth, and Vishnu has done this in many forms for the preservation of mankind.

2. His incarnations.

He is generally considered to have had ten incarnations, of which nine are past and one is still to come. The incarnations were as follows:

1. As a great fish he guided the ark in which Manu the primeval man escaped from the deluge.

2. As a tortoise he supported the earth and poised it in its present position; or according to another version he lay at the bottom of the sea while the mountain Meru was set on its peak on his back, and with the serpent Vasuki as a rope round the mountain the ocean was churned by the G.o.ds for making the divine Amrit or nectar which gives immortality.

3. As a boar he dived under the sea and raised the earth on his tusks after it had been submerged by a demon.

4. As Narsingh, the man-lion, he delivered the world from the tyranny of another demon.

5. As Waman or a dwarf he tricked the King Bali, who had gained possession over the earth and nether world and was threatening the heavens, by asking for as much ground as he could cover in three steps. When his request was derisively granted he covered heaven and earth in two steps, but on Bali's intercession left him the nether regions and refrained from making the third step which would have covered them.

6. As Parasurama [402] he cleared the earth of the Kshatriyas, who had oppressed the Brahman hermits and stolen the sacred cow, by a slaughter of them thrice seven times repeated.

7. As Rama, the divine king of Ajodhia or Oudh, he led an expedition to Ceylon for the recovery of his wife Sita, who had been abducted by Rawan, the demon king of Ceylon. This story probably refers to an early expedition of the Aryans to southern India, in which they may have obtained the a.s.sistance of the Munda tribes, represented by Hanuman and his army of apes.

8. As Krishna he supported the Pandavas in their war against the Kauravas, and at the head of the Yadava clan founded the city of Dwarka in Gujarat, where he was afterwards killed. The popular group of legends about Krishna in his capacity of a cowherd in the forests of Mathura was perhaps at first distinct and afterwards combined with the story of the Yadava prince. [403] But it is in this latter character as the divine cowherd that Krishna is most generally known and wors.h.i.+pped.

9. As Buddha he was the great founder of the religion known by his name; the Brahmans, by making Buddha an incarnation of Vishnu, have thus provided a connecting link between Buddhism and Hinduism.

In his tenth incarnation he will come again as Nishka-lanki or the stainless one for the final regeneration of the world, and his advent is expected by some Hindus, who wors.h.i.+p him in this form.

3. Wors.h.i.+p of Vishnu and Vaishnava doctrines.

In the Central Provinces Vishnu is wors.h.i.+pped as Narayan Deo, who is identified with the sun, or as Parmeshwar, the supreme beneficent G.o.d. He is also much wors.h.i.+pped in his incarnations as Rama and Krishna, and their images, with those of their consorts, Sita and Radha, are often to be found in his temples as well as in their own. These images are supposed to be subject to all the conditions and necessities incident to living humanity. Hence in the daily ritual they are washed, dressed, adorned and even fed like human beings, food being daily placed before them, and its aroma, according to popular belief, nouris.h.i.+ng the G.o.d present in the image.

The princ.i.p.al Vishnuite sects are described in the article on Bairagi, and the dissenting sects which have branched off from these in special articles. [404] The cult of Vishnu and his two main incarnations is the most prominent feature of modern Hinduism. The orthodox Vaishnava sects mainly differed on the point whether the human soul or spirit was a part of the divine soul or separate from it, and whether it would be reabsorbed into the divine soul, or have a separate existence after death. But they generally regarded all human souls as of one quality, and hence were opposed to distinctions of caste. Animals also have souls or spirits, and the Vishnuite doctrine is opposed to the destruction of animal life in any form. In the Bania caste the practices of Vaishnava Hindus and Jains present so little difference that they can take food together, and even intermarry. The creed is also opposed to suicide.