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their devotion to this personification of the Sakti of KRISHNA is ridiculously and disgustingly expressed. In order to convey the idea of being as it were her followers and friends, a character obviously incompatible with the difference of sex, they assume the female garb, and adopt not only the dress and ornaments, but the manners and occupations of women: the preposterous nature of this assumption is too apparent, even to Hindu superstition, to be regarded with any sort of respect by the community, and, accordingly, the Sakhi Bhavas are of little repute, and very few in number: they occasionally lead a mendicant life, but are rarely met with: it is said that the only place where they are to be found, in any number, is Jaypur: there are a few at Benares, and a few in Bengal.
RELIGIOUS SECTS
CHARAŃ DÁSÍS.
Another Vaishnava sect conforming with the last in the worship of Rádhá and Krishna was instituted by CHARAŃ DÁS, a merchant of the Dhúsar tribe, who resided at Dehli in the reign of the second ALEMGIR. Their doctrines of universal emanation are much the same as those of the Vedanta school, although they correspond with the Vaishnava sects in maintaining the great source of all things, or Brahma, to be KRISHNA: reverence of the Guru, and assertion of the pre-eminence of faith above every other distinction, are also common to them with other Vaishnava sects, from whom, probably, they only differ in re
