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RELIGIOUS SECTS
a people, and were separated from their Indian countrymen in political constitution, as well as religious tenets. At the same time the Sikhs are still, to a certain extent, Hindus: they worship the deities of the Hindus, and celebrate all their festivals: they derive their legends and literature from the same sources, and pay great veneration to the Brahmans. The impress of their origin is still, therefore, strongly retained, notwithstanding their rejection of caste, and their substituting the Das Padshah ká granth', the compilation of GURU GOVIND, for the Vedas, and Puránas.
NIRMALAS.
These differ but little from the Udásís, and are perhaps still closer adherents to the doctrines of the
1 From the succession of Chiefs; GOVIND was tenth teacher in succession from Nának, and flourished at the close of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century.
The other standard authority of the Sikhs, the Ádi Granth, is a compilation chiefly of the works of Nának, and his immediate successors, made by Arjunmal, a Sikh teacher, in the end of the 16th century. As it is usually met with, however, it comprehends the writings of many other individuals, many of whom are Vaishnavds. At a Sikh Sangat, or Chapel, in Benares, the Book, a large folio, there denominated the Sambhu Granth, was said to contain the contributions of the following writers:
Nának, Nám Deo, Kabir, Sheikh Feridaddin, Dhanna, Rámánand, Pipa, Sena, Jayadeva, Phandak, Sudámá, Prahlad, Dhuru, Raidas, Vibhishana, Mirá Bái, Karma Bái.
[Compare also G. de TASSY, hist. de la littérat. Ilindoui et Hindoust., I, 385 ff. Journal R. As. Soc., IX, 43 ff. Dabistán, II, 246-98. Journal As. S. Bengal, XIV, 393.]
