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OF THE HINDUS.
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pay than devotion, inflict upon themselves bodily tortures, and pierce their flesh with hooks or spits, run sharp pointed instruments through their tongues and cheeks, recline upon beds of spikes, or gash themselves with knives, all which practices are occasionally met with throughout India, and have become familiar to Europeans from the excess to which they are carried in Bengal at the Charak Pújá, a festival which, as a public religious observance, is unknown anywhere else, and which is not directed nor countenanced by any of the authorities of the Hindus, not even by the Tantras.
MISCELLANEOUS SECTS.
The sects that have been described are those of the regular system, and particularly of what may be called Brahmanical Hinduism, emanating, more or less directly, from the doctrines of the original creed. Besides these there are a number which it is not so easy to class, although they are mostly referable to a common source, and partake, in many respects, of the same notions, especially of those of a Vaishnava and Vedánta tendency. They exist in various degrees of popularity, and date from various periods, and in most instances owe their institution to enthusiastic or contemplative individuals, whose biography is yet preserved consistenly enough by tradition.
This is not the case, however, with the first two on the list the Saurapatas and Gánapátas: these
