The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1

by R. V. Russell

Smārta Sect

Smārta Sect.—This is an orthodox Hindu sect, the members of which are largely Brāhmans. The name is derived from Smriti or tradition, a name given to the Hindu sacred writings, with the exception of the Vedas, which last are regarded as a divine revelation. Members of the sect worship the five deities, Siva, Vishnu, Sūraj or the sun, Ganpati and Sakti, the divine principle of female energy corresponding to Siva. They say that their sect was founded by Shankar Achārya, the great Sivite reformer and opponent of Buddhism, but this appears to be incorrect. Shankar Achārya himself is said to have believed in one unseen God, who was the first cause and sole ruler of the universe; but he countenanced for the sake of the weaker brethren the worship of orthodox Hindu deities and of their idols.

Image of the prophet Swāmi Nārāyan in the Teli temple at Burhānpur

Swāmi-Nārāyan Sect

1. The founder.

Swāmi-Nārāyan Sect.[1]—This, one of the most modern Vaishnava sects, was founded by Sahajānand Swāmi, a Sarwaria Brāhman, born near Ajodhia in the United Provinces in A.D. 1780. At an early age he became a religious mendicant, and wandered all over India, visiting the principal shrines. When twenty years old he was made a Sādhu of the Rāmānandi order, and soon nominated as his successor by the head of the order. He preached with great success in Gujarāt, and though his tenets do not seem to have differed much from the Rāmānandi creed, his personal influence was such that his followers founded a new sect and called it after him. He proclaimed the worship of one sole deity, Krishna or Nārāyana, whom he identified with the sun, and apparently his followers held, and he inclined to believe himself, that he was a fresh incarnation of Vishnu. It is said that he displayed miraculous powers before his disciples, entrancing whomsoever he cast his eyes upon, and causing them in this mesmeric state (Samādhi) to imagine they saw Sahajānand as Krishna with yellow robes, weapons of war, and other characteristics of the God, and to behold him seated as chief in an assembly of divine beings.

2. Tenets of the sect.

His creed prohibited the destruction of animal life; the use of animal food and intoxicating liquors or drugs on any occasion; promiscuous intercourse with the other sex; suicide, theft and robbery, and false accusations. Much good was done, the Collector testified, by his preaching among the wild Kolis of Gujarāt;[2] his morality was said to be far better than any which could be learned from the Shāstras; he condemned theft and bloodshed; and those villages and Districts which had received him, from being among the worst, were now among the best and most orderly in the Province of Bombay. His success was great among the lower castes, as the Kolis, Bhīls and Kāthis. He was regarded by his disciples as the surety of sinners, his position in this respect resembling that of the Founder of Christianity. To Bishop Heber he said that while he permitted members of different castes to eat separately here below, in the future life there would be no distinction of castes.[3] His rules for the conduct of the sexes towards each other were especially severe. No Sādhu of the Swāmi-Nārāyan sect might ever touch a woman, even the accidental touching of any woman other than a mother having to be expiated by a whole-day fast. Similarly, should a widow-disciple touch even a boy who was not her son, she had to undergo the same penalty. There were separate passages for women in their large temples, and separate reading and preaching halls for women, attended by wives of the Achāryas or heads of the sect. These could apparently be married, but other members of the priestly order must remain single; while the lay followers lived among their fellows, pursuing their ordinary lives and avocations. The strictness of the Swāmi on sexual matters was directed against the licentious practices of the Mahārāj or Vallabhachārya order. He boldly denounced the irregularities they had introduced into their forms of worship, and exposed the vices which characterised the lives of their clergy. This attitude, as well as the prohibition of the worship of idols, earned for him the hostility of the Peshwa and the Marātha Brāhmans, and he was subjected to a considerable degree of persecution; his followers were taught the Christian doctrine of suffering injury without retaliation, and the devotees of hostile sects took advantage of this to beat them unmercifully, some being even put to death.