________________
OF THE HINDUS.
165
most important and compulsory: the members of this sect not only are required to deliver up themselves and every thing valuable to the disposal of the Guru, they are not only to entertain full belief of the usual Vaishnava tenet, which identifies the votary, the teacher, and the god, but they are to look upon the Guru as one with the present deity, as possessed of more authority even than the deity, and as one whose favour is more to be courted, and whose anger is more to be deprecated, than even that of KRISHNA himself'. We have already had occasion to observe that this veneration is hereditary, and is paid to the successor of a deceased Gosáin, although, in the estimation perhaps of his own worshippers, he is in his individual capacity more deserving of reprobation than of reverence. This blind and extravagant adoration of the Guru is, perhaps, the most irrational of all Hindu irrationalities, and it is but justice to the foun
On this subject the following text occurs in the Upasana Chandrúmrita: u 7: TO: FOTOT TT: # aft: FA II "The Mantra is manifest in the Guru, and the Guru is HARI himself.” TyÅ I Ta: Fuga a FABIA I “First the Guru is to be worshipped, then I am to be worshipped.” rita सदाराध्य : श्रेष्ठो मन्त्रादभेदतः । गुरी तुष्टे हरिस्तुष्टः नान्यथा कल्पatfefu: “The Guru is always to be worshipped: he is most excellent from being one with the Mantra. Hari is pleased when the Guru is pleased: millions of acts of homage else will fail of being accepted.” Again: ETT Tê TifaTat TTT Tê 7 : 1 “When Hari is in anger, the Guru is our protector, when the Guru is in anger, we have none." These are from the Bhajanámrita,
