[Footnote 643:  Called Abhangs.]

[Footnote 644:  See Eliot, Hinduism in Assam, J.R.A.S. 1910, pp. 1168-1186.]

[Footnote 645:  Census of India, 1911, Assam, p. 41.]

[Footnote 646:  Some authorities state that the sacred book thus venerated is the Bhagavad-gita, but at Kamalabari I made careful enquiries and was assured it was the Namghosha.]

[Footnote 647:  Especially Gadadhar Singh, 1681-96.]

[Footnote 648:  See Census of India, 1901, Bengal, pp. 183-4 and Bhattacharya, Hindu Castes and Sects, pp. 485-488.]

[Footnote 649:  Karta, literally doer, is the name given to the executive head of a joint family in Bengal.  The sect prefer to call themselves Bhabajanas or Bhagawanis.]

[Footnote 650:  Another mixed sect is that of the Dhamis in the Panna state of Bundelkhand, founded by one Prannath in the reign of Aurungzeb.  Their doctrine is a combination of Hinduism and Islam, tending towards Krishnaism.  See Russell, Tribes and Castes of Central Provinces, p. 217.]

CHAPTER XXXI

AMALGAMATION OF HINDUISM AND ISLAM.  KABIR AND THE SIKHS

1

The Kartabhajas mentioned at the end of the last chapter show a mixture of Hinduism and Mohammedanism, and the mixture[651] is found in other sects some of which are of considerable importance.  A group of these sects, including the Sikhs and followers of Kabir, arose in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.  Their origin can be traced to Ramanand but they cannot be called Vaishnavas and they are clearly distinguished from all the religious bodies that we have hitherto passed in review.  The tone of their writings is more restrained and severe:  the worshipper approaches the deity as a servant rather than a lover:  caste is rejected as useless:  Hindu mythology is eschewed or used sparingly.  Yet in spite of these differences the essential doctrines of Tulsi Das, Kabir and Nanak show a great resemblance.  They all believe in one deity whom they call by various names, but this deity, though personal, remains of the Indian not of the Semitic type.  He somehow brings the world of transmigration into being by his power of illusion, and the business of the soul is to free itself from the illusion and return to him.  Almost all these teachers, whether orthodox or heterodox, had a singular facility for composing hymns, often of high literary merit, and it is in these emotional utterances, rather than in dogmatic treatises, that they addressed themselves to the peoples of northern India.