________________
ON THE SIKHS.
121
III. SUMMARY ACCOUNT
OF THE CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS
OF THE SIKHS.
From the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. IX (1848), p. 43.
THERE have arisen from time to time among what are considered the unlearned classes of the people of India thoughtful and benevolent individuals, who have felt dissatisfied with the religious practices of their countrymen, and with the distinctions of caste and creed by which they are disunited. They have attempted, accordingly, to reform these defects, and to reduce the existing systems of belief to a few simple elements of faith and worship in which the Brahman and the Súdra, the Mohammedan and Hindu might cordially combine, and from which they might learn to lay aside their uncharitable feelings towards each other.
Although not professing to be deeply versed with the sacred literature of either sect, with the Vedas or the Koran, the Indian reformers have been in general men of respectable attainments, and have been well
