Essays Lectures on Religion of Hindu Vol 01

SR No.: 007688
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: H H Wilson
Publisher: Trubner and Company London
Publication Year: 1861
Total Pages: 480
Language: English
Classification: Interfaith & Hinduism
File Size: 28 MB

Page 62

46
RELIGIOUS SECTS
The Rámánujas are not very numerous in the north of India, where they are better known as Sri Vaishňavas; they are decidedly hostile to the Saiva sect, and are not on very friendly terms with the modern votaries of KŘISHŇA, although they recognise that deity as an incarnation of VISHŃU'.
RÁMÁNANDIS, or RÁMÁVATS. The followers of RÁMÁNAND are much better known than those of RÁMÁNUJA in upper Hindustan: they are usually considered as a branch of the RÁMÁNUJA sect, and address their devotions peculiarly to RÁMACHANDRA, and the divine manifestations connected with VISHŃU in that incarnation, as Sítá, LAKSHMANA, and HANUMÁN.
i Dubois, in his Sth Chapter, has some details of the l'aishnava mendicants, as met with in the Dekhan: his account, however, does not apply to the Rámánuja, or any other Vaishnava sect, as known in these provinces, although a few of the particulars may be true, if confined to the Vaishňava Vairagis - the Dakhini Vaishnavas must be, therefore, a very different class from those that are met within any other part of India, or the Abbé must have mixed, as is not unusual with him, a small quantum of truth, with a very large portion of error: it is, indeed, impossible to think him correct, when he states, that the sectaries of T'ishnu eat publicly of all sorts of meat, except beef, and drink spirituous liquors without shame or restraint, and that they are reproached with being the chief promoters of that abominable sacrifice, the Sakti Pújá:” now, it is not true of any sect in Upper India, that the practices the Abbé mentions occur at all, except in the utmost privacy and secrecy, and if even in that way they do occur, it is certainly not amongst the Vaishnava Vairagis, but with very different sects, as we shall hereafter see.