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HINDUISM.

III. REFORMING SECTS.

Kabir-Panthis and other sects sprung from the reforming movement of Kabir.— Mussulman influence.—The Sikhs : Nanak and his successors the Gurus.—Guru Arjun and the Adigranth.—Guru Govind and the Holy War.—The Sikh state.—End of Sikh independence: their cultus and principal divisions.—New sects still forming in India.

Alongside of these somewhat timid protestations, others of a bolder and more uncompromising type were being constantly put forth, one of which, at least, proved highly successful and all of which, even those which had few direct adherents, exercised a wholesome influence in the midst of the confusion. Combined with what of good remained from the old traditions of the country, these acted on Hinduism as a sort of leaven, which prevented it from decaying by stagnation and corrupting altogether. The most perfect representative, perhaps, of this reforming movement was Kabir, or, as his disciples, who revere in him an incarnation of the deity, also surname him, Jnanin, "the One who has Knowledge, the Seer." So little is known of a positive kind in regard to this remarkable man, that some have gone so far as to doubt his existence.^[1] The most probable hypothesis is that he was born at Benares, and was of the weaver caste; that he was a Vairagin of the sect of Eamananda perhaps, as tradition surmises, an immediate disciple of that master, and that he taught at the beginning of the fifteenth century (the legend, making him live three hundred years, from 1149 to 1449).

1. H. H. Wilson, Select Works, vol. i. p. 69.