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OF THE HINDUS.
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the Peninsula. They form, in fact, a very large and, from their wealth and influence, a most important division of the population of India.
BÁBÁ LÁLÍS. The followers of Bábá Lái are sometimes included amongst the Vaishnava sects, and the classification is warranted by the outward seeming of these sectaries, who streak the forehead with Gopichandana, and profess a veneration for Ráma: in reality, however, they adore but one God, dispensing with all forms of worship, and directing their devotion by rules and objects derived from a medely of Vedanta and Ssúfi tenets.
BÁBÁ LÁL was a Kshatriya, born in Málvá, about the reign of JEHÁNGIR: he early adopted a religious life under the tuition of CHETANA Sváji, whose fitness as a teacher had been miraculously proved. This person soliciting alms of BÁBÁ LÁL received some raw grain, and wood to dress it with : lighting the wood, he confined the fire between his feet, and supported the vessel in which he boiled the grain upon his insteps. BÁBÁ LÁL immediately prostrated himself before him as his Guru, and receiving from him a grain of the boiled rice to eat, the system of the universe became immediately unfolded to his comprehension. He followed CHETANA to Lahore, whence being dispatched to Dwáraká by his Guru, to procure some of the earth called Gopichandana, he effected his mission in less than an hour: this miraculous rapidity,
