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RELIGIOUS SECTS
ment; and as a very great variety prevails in that religion, the subject may be considered as not devoid of curiosity and interest, especially as it has been left little better than a blank, in the voluminous compositions or compilations, professing to give an account of the native country of the Hindus.
The description of the different sects of the Hindus, which I propose to offer, is necessarily superficial: it would, indeed, have been impossible to have adopted the only unexceptionable method of acquiring an accurate knowledge of their tenets and observances, or of studying the numerous works in Sanskrit, Persian, or the provincial dialects of Hindi, on which they are founded. I have been obliged to content myself, therefore, with a cursory inspection of a few of those compositions, and to depend for much of my information on oral report, filling up or correcting from these two sources the errors and omissions of two works, on this subject professedly, from which I have derived the ground work of the whole account.
The works alluded to are in the Persian language, though both were written by Hindu authors; the first was compiled by SÍTAL Sinh, Múnshí to the Rújá of Benares; the second by MATHURÁ NÁTH, late librarian of the Hindu College, at the same city, a man of great personal respectability and eminent acquirements: these works contain a shiort history of the origin of the various sects, and descriptions of the appearance, and observances, and present condition of their followers: they comprise all the known varieties, with
