GON
51&
purpose it seems, like the lingam of Shiva, to be merely symbolical. The only figure I have seen worshipped is the mutilated statue of a warrior, disinterred at Paras, which is revered, under the name Parasa Deo, as the tutelary demon of the village.
The
principal places of pilgrimage are the temple of Pateshwari Debi ^* Debi Pdtan, the thSkurdwara of the new Vaishnavi -1 Places ofr pilgnmaga. gect of Chhipia, and the temples of Baleshwarnath MahMeo in Mahadewa, Karhnanath Mah^deo at Machhligaon, Bijleshwari Debi at Balrampur, and Pacharandth and Prithwinath at Khargfipur. Detailed accounts of each of these places will be found in other articles, but this is the place to remark on the curious connexion which exists between this district and Gujarat. The principal peculiar Hindu sects here are the followers of the great Shankaracharya, whose system took its rise in Gujardt, and the Gorakhnathi jogis, whose strange cultus is peculiarly at home in that province. The connexion has been renewed in the •
by the Chhipia sect, whose monastery here is governed by an abbot at Jiiragkrh. Besides this, the principal Chhattri clans of the district, the Kalhanses and the Janwfc, place their original home in the neighbouring Baguldra, a tract between Gujarat and the sources of the Godaveri, whence the family bards still come on their annual or biennial
last century
visits.
A notice yanous
of the religion of the district would be incomplete without a short description of the Goshains, or followers of castes and are found here in considerable gijan]ja,r4charya,
who
numbers, and very frequently in the influential position of large village proprietors and farmers.
Gosh^in or Sanniasi, and they are divided into ten after as many natural features, and in the following order of social estimation: 1, Gir; 2, Puri; 3, Bharthi; 4, Ban; 5, Aran 10, Parbat,— i. e., the hill, 9, Sagar 7, Tirth 8, A'sran 6, Saraswati
The
generic term
padmis or
classes,
is
named
the town, the sacred land of Bharath, the wood, the forest,, the holy the pUgrimage, the hermitage, the sea, and the mountain.
The
first
four classes are most frequent here.
They
river,
are again divided
into those who have adopted a worldly life, and marry and give in marriageThe latter as other folk and those who observe the vows of their order.
live in small
_
maths or monasteries, and are
strict
celibates
in fact, so
jealous are they on this point that they always travel in pairs, whom even the most trivial occasions may not divide for a moment, lest temptations They are held in good fatal to the chastity of either should arise. estimation by other Hindus, and the highest castes will drink water from Their ranks are recruited by adoption from all castes, except their vessels. the very lowest, and when they die they are buried in a sitting posture, in first with salt, and then with earth. The Gorakhnath jogis stand to these in something like the position of poor relations the connection is acknowledged, but without pride. These are divided into four ^the Kanphatas, the Janganis, the iSewaras, and the Alakhias. classes The first is described in the articles on Debi Patau, where they are at home. The three remaining classes are not very remarkable in a religious
and covered
