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heralds and bards with the mixed faith of so many low-caste Hindus. But in their office of herald they have a religious pride, and, since in the present day they are less heralds than expressmen, they carry property with religious reverence, and are respected in their office even by robbers; for it this caste that do not hesitate to commit traga, that is, if an agreement which they have caused to be made between two parties is not carried out they will kill themselves and their families, with such religious effect that the guilt lies upon the offending party in the agreement, who expiates it by his own life. They are regarded as a sort of divine representative, and fed themselves to be so. A case reported from India in this year, 1894, shows that the feeling still exists. The herald slew his own mother in the presence of the defaulting debtor, who thereupon slew himself as his only expiation.]
[Footnote 32: As, for example, between the D[ra]d[ru] Panth[=i]s and the Jains in Ajmir and Jeypur. The last was a chief Digambara town, while Mathur[=a] (on the Jumna) was a Cret[=a]mbara station. For a possible survival of Buddhism, see below, p. 485, note.]
[Footnote 33: The Sarcadarça[n.Jasa[=n.]graha of S[=a]yana (fourteenth century) and the Ça[=n.]kara-vijaya, or 'Conquest of Çankara.']
[Footnote 34: Thus the Dabist[=a]n enumerates as actual sects of the seventeenth century, 'moon-worshippers,' 'star-worshippers,' 'Agniworshippers,''wind-worshippers,' 'water-worshippers,''earth-worshippers,' 'tripl=ujjas (or worshippers of all the three kingdoms of nature), and 'worshippers of man' (manu[s.]yabhakt[=a]s), "who recognise the being of God in man, and know nothing more perfect than mankind" (ii. 12), a faith which, as we have shown, is professed in the Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata.]
[Footnote 35: Religious Thought and Life.]
