[204] Professor Wilson (see his Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus, in the XVIth vol. of the As. Res., p. 1-136) has enumerated the religious divisions of the Hindus as they have been described by the author of the Sankara Vijaya, probably in the 8th century of our era, to which enumeration he added that of the present divisions of this people, comprised in three great classes: the Vaichnavas, the Sâivas, and the Saktas. Very few names of these sects are to be found in The Dabistán, although both works agree in general in the account of the opinions, rites, and customs of the different sectaries; the outlines of their systems appear to have remained the same during at least the last thousand years, whatever alterations the details may have undergone.
[205] Panthi is derived from the Sanskrit पन्थिन् panthin, “who goes the road.” This term occurs only in the word परिपन्थिन् pari-panthi, “an adversary.”
[206] According to the Shah-nameh, Afrasiab, after many battles, succombed to the fortune of Kaí-Khusro. The king of Turan fled to the mountains of Berdah, where he concealed himself in a cavern. It so happened that Hum, a descendant of Feridun, lived as a hermit in the same desert: there he heard by night a voice of complaint, which he soon recognised to be that of Afrasiab. The hermit had not extinguished the vindictive passion in his breast; he seized and bound the fugitive king, and conducted him to be delivered into the hands of Káí Khusró. On the bank of a large river, Hum, visited by a feeling of pity, loosened the fetters of his prisoner, who profited by these few moments of liberty to escape, and dived into the water, where he remained concealed, as is said above, so that he could not be discovered. Káí Khusró, having in the mean time arrived to receive himself the great captive, Hum advised the king to subject Gorshivez (Afrâsiab’s brother) who was also a prisoner in his hands, to severe tortures, in order that the lamentations of the sufferer might draw Afrasiab out of the water. This stratagem succeeded, and Afrasiab was killed by the sword of Káí Khusró.
[207] सप्त चक्राः In the best treatises of the Hindu philosophers, we find only six chakras, or “circles,” enumerated; these are as follow: 1. Muládhára, “the parts about the pubis;” 2. the Swádishthánam, or “umbilical region;” 3. the Manipúram, “pit of the stomach,” or “epigastrium;” 4. Anáhatam, “the root of the nose;” 5. Visuddham, “the hollow between the frontal sinuses;” 6. Ajnyákhyam, “the fontenelle, or union of the coronal and sagittal sutures.” To these circles, or divisions, are attributed various faculties and relations with divinities and physical elements.
[208] मूलाधार.
[209] मन्थर “a churning stick.”
[210] नाभिचक्र.
[211] मणिपुर.
[212] कण्ट.
[213] भ्रुव.