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or institutes of the Hindus, as affecting the various periods of life and corresponding practices of Brahmanical devotion.
RELIGIOUS SECTS
As far, therefore, as the customs or observances of the Gymnosophists are described, we have no reason to conclude that any but the followers of the Vedas are intended, and the only part of the account applicable to any other sect is the term Germanes, or Sermanes, or Samanæans, applied to one division of the Sophists or Sages. This name, as Mr. COLEBROOKE observes, seems to bear some affinity to the Śramanas, or ascetics of the Jains or Bauddhas, but we can derive no positive conclusion from a resemblance, which may possibly be rather imaginary than real, and the object of which, after all, is far from being the individual property of any sect, but is equally applicable to the ascetic of every religious system. As distinct from the Brahmans, the Sarmanes will be equally distinct from the Jains; for the Brahmans, it is said by PORPHYRY, are of one race; and the Samanæans are selected from all the tribes, and consist of persons choosing to prosecute divine studies,-precisely the independent Sannyasi or Gosain of modern times, few persons of which description belong to the order of the Brahmans, or are united with the rest by any community of origin or peculiarity of faith.
Again, another word has been adduced in corrobo
manes, and concluded that they were nothing but Gioghis, from Pietro della Valle's description of the latter.
