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ON THE SIKHS.
grounded in the speculative tenets of the two systems which they have sought to amalgamate. Retaining the doctrine of transmigration, they have grafted upon it a philosophy compounded of the Vedanta principle of emanation, or the origin of individual soul from one great pure universal spirit to which the detached portions pine to return, and of the Súfyism of the Mohammedans, in which the language of passion is substituted for that of dogmatism, and the human soul and the divine spirit are typified as the lover and the beloved. These doctrines have been clothed by the reformers alluded to in a popular dress; they have been set forth in short metrical compositions — odes, or hymns, or songs — always in the vernacular dialects, and written in a style addressed to the imagination and feelings of the common people. These are usually chaunted to simple melodies, and even where they have not effected any change of opinion, they have become extensively diffused and have exercised considerable influence over the national character. These compositions gradually accumulated, and , preserved in collections of various extent, constitute the literature and the creed of a large portion of the agricultural population of Upper India.
The teacher whose instructions have exercised, although indirectly, the most durable influence upon any considerable body and, aided by political events, have tended to form a nation out of a sect, is Bábá NÁNAK, or NÁNAK SHál, the nominal founder of the religion and nation of the Sikhs. He was born in
