5. Conclusion.
The author of the above account is not given, and it apparently emanates from a follower of the saint, but there seems little reason to doubt its substantial accuracy, and it certainly demonstrates the high estimation in which he was held. After his death his disciples erected Chauras or resthouses and monuments to his memory in all the villages and beneath all the trees where he had at any time made any stay in Gujarāt; and here he is worshipped by the sect. In 1901 the sect had about 300,000 adherents in Gujarāt. In the Central Provinces a number of persons belong to it in Nimār, principally of the Teli caste. The Telis of Nimār are anxious to improve their social position, which is very low, and have probably joined the sect on account of its liberal principles on the question of caste.
Images of Rāma, Lachman and Sīta, with attendants
[1] Based on the account of the sect in the volume, Hindus of Gujarāt, of the Bombay Gazetteer, and The Swāmi-Nārāyan Sect pamphlet, printed at the Education Society’s Press, Bombay, 1887.
[2] Bishop Heber’s Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces, pp. 143, 153.
[3] The Swāmi-Nārāyan Sect, pp. 4, 22. The above details are given, because in the Bombay Gazetteer the Swāmi is said to have prohibited the taking of food with low-caste people, and caste pollution; and this appears incorrect.
[4] The Swāmi-Nārāyan Sect, p. 25.