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RELIGIOUS SECTS
of the Bauddhas and Jains; but an attempt has been recently made to give it a more comprehensive and universal character, and to bring it within the reach of popular attraction.
A distinguished Patron of the Súnyavádís was DáYARÁM, the Rájá of Hatras, when that fortress was destroyed by the Marquis of HASTINGS. Under his encouragement a work in Hindi verse was composed by BAKHTÁVAR, a religious mendicant, entitled the Śúnísár, the essence of emptiness, the purport of which is to shew that all notions of man and God are fallacies, and that nothing is. A few passages from this book will convey an idea of the tenets of the sect.
“Whatever I behold is Vacuity. Theism and Atheism-Máyá and BRAHM—all is false, all is error; the globe itself, and the egg of Braumá, the seven Dwipas and nine Khandas, heaven and earth, the sun and moon, BRAHMÁ, VISHŃU and SIYA, KÚRMA and ŚESHA, the Guru and his pupil, the individual and the species, the temple and the god, the observance of ceremonial rites, and the muttering of prayers, all is emptiness. Speech, hearing and discussion are emptiness, and substance itself is no more.”
"Let every one meditate upon himself, nor make known his self-communion to another; let him be the worshipper and the worship, nor talk of a difference between this and that; look into yourself and not into another, for in yourself that other will be found. There is no other but myself, and I talk of another from ignorance. In the same way as I see my face in
