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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
DECEMBER, 1878.
verned and properly regulated country, which of Captain Price. The one incomprehensible is fertile and free from disturbances, within a Supreme Being, who is devoid of or beyond all solitary cell within the precincts of a matha or attributes, is the object of their adoration. Banctuary."
But as a boing whose nature and properties are A Kanph & t & is not allowed to lead a inconceivable and inscrutable, and of whom solitary, independent, or vagrant life, like the nothing can be predicated compatible with the Paramhansa s or Paribrajakas of the finite and imperfect notions of humanity, can Vedic religion, or that of a mendicant as enjoined hardly be made an object of meditation or worship, by the Smritti sástras. He is strictly prohibited, certain attributes and properties were required according to the Hathadipika, from having com- for the purpose of meditation and imitation. To munication with the wicked, from sitting beside supply this want Gorakhnatha wrote a work, a fireplace, from walking in bye-ways, from early called the Goraksha-Sahasranámá, containing & baths and fasts, and from all bodily austerities thousand attributive appellations of God, for and penances enjoined in the ádstras. In con- the contemplation of his disciples. This book tradistinction to the practices of the Kan- forms the creed of the sect, and requires not phâţâs it may be mentioned that early baths, only the firm belief of its votaries in these atand sitting by the fireplace, as also offering tributes of the deity, but their jap, or repeatoblations to fire, are positive injunctions of the ing of those names in secret, and dlwyán, or Vedas, and are extensively practised by Hindus, meditation on their import in silence. In the and a large number of itinerant and vagrant same manner the Vaishnavas have their Sanya-sis of other seots. The main object of thousand appellations of Vishnu, and the the superiors or heads of a KanphâţA monastery 1 Så kt sa hundred and eight names, and someis the attainment of spiritual perfection in the times more, for the goddess Sakti (potentia), close recess of his solitary cell; while the chief whom they adore. The two Hindu sects known employment of the novices is the practice of acts by the names of Satnå mis and Dagnamis of charity and benevolence to every one within have respectively a hundred and ten epithets for the circuit of their monastery.
their deities; and the Muhammadans a hundred The religion of the Kanphat A s, as pro- names of God and ninety-nine of Muhamfessed by their founder and preceptor, Guru mad, which they mutter while telling their Gorakhnatha, is similar to that of all other beads, and utter during their prayers and devoSaiva sects-the monotheism, otherwise called tions. But the mere jap, or muttering of these Brahmaism, of the Upanishads and Vedanta names, or the dhyán, meditation on their significaphilosophy, which was widely propagated after. tions, is not enough to acquit the Kanphatâ of wards by its great champion, the venerable Ś a n- his responsibility as a yogi. He must endeavour kar â chârya, and his disciples, Anandagiri to apply to himself the archetypes of divine and others, and now upheld by the 'Brahma perfection, and to accustom himself to imitate, Somaj of Calcutta. The only authentic account resemble, and approximate them in his spiricual we have of Gorakhnatha's religious teaching nature, until he finds himself assimilated into and principles is contained in the religious the divine essence, by his attaining to a state debates (goshtis) held between him and Kabir, of clairvoyance and ecstacy which liberates him and preserved in the Rekhta verses of the latter, from the vicissitudes which mortal existences published in the Hindi and Hindustani Selections are subject to.
SANSKRIT AND OLD CANARESE INSCRIPTIONS.
BY J. F. FLEET, Bo. 0.8., M.R.A.S.
(Continued from p. 263.) No. XLVIII.
| 3 of the photographs of copper-plate grants at At Ind. Ant., Vol. VI., p. 91, I published the end of Colonel Dixon's Collection. The (No. XXXI. of this Series) a copper-plate grant photograph was on too small a scale for a of the Western Chalu kya king Vinay - lithograph facsimile to be prepared from it. ditya. My transcription was made from No. But this want has now been supplied through
