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OF THE HINDUS.
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desired to take him to Kási, fled with terror, thinking they had got hold of some incarnate demon: after having run to the distance of about a mile, he was surprised to find the child before him, by whom his fear was tranquillised, and he was persuaded to return to his wife, and bring up, without anxiety or alarm, the infant they had so marvellously discovered.
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All traditions concur in making KABIR the disciple of RAMANAND, although various stories are narrated of the method by which he obtained that distinction, and overcame the objections started to him as a man of low caste, or, according to very general belief, of the Mohammedan persuasion: he succeeded at last by surprise, having put himself in the way of that teacher on the steps of the ghut down which he went at daybreak to bathe, so as to be struck with his foot, on which RAMANAND exclaimed, Rúm, Rám, words that KABIR assumed, and RÁMÁNAND acknowledged to be the initiatory Mantra, which forms the bond of union between a Guru and his disciple.
The story of KABIR's being a disciple of RÁMÁNAND, however told, and, although perhaps not literally true in any fashion, may be so far correct, that KABIR was roused by the innovations of that sectary to adopt and extend the schism, and seems to place at contiguous periods the eras at which they flourished: according to the Kabir Panthis, their founder was present in the world three hundred years, or from 1149 to 14491,
सम्वत् वारहसये श्री पांच मों ज्ञानी कियौ विचार । काशी
