off the child's
hair. The baptismal ceremony has the effect of purifying the house,
which has been made impure by the birth (_sutak_).

"The Bishnois do not revere Brahmans, but have priests of their own
known as Sadh, who are chosen from among the laity. The priests are
a hereditary class, and do not intermarry with other Bishnois, from
whom, like Brahmans, they receive food and offerings. The Bishnois do
not burn their dead, but bury them below the cattle-shed or in some
place like a pen frequented by cattle. They make pilgrimages to the
place where Jhambaji is buried to the south of Bikaner; here a tomb
and temple have been erected to his memory, and gatherings are held
twice a year. The sect observe the Holi in a different way from other
Hindus. After sunset on that day they fast till the next forenoon
when, after hearing read the account of how Prahlad was tortured by
his infidel father, Hrianya Kasipu, for believing in the god Vishnu,
until he was delivered by the god himself in his incarnation of
Narsingh, the Man-lion, and mourning over Prahlad's sufferings, they
light a sacrificial fire and partake of consecrated water, and after
distributing sugar (_gur_) in commemoration of Prahlad's delivery
from the fire into which he was thrown, they break their fast."

5. Nature of the sect.

The above interesting account of the Bishnois by Mr. Wilson shows that
Jhambaji was a religious reformer, who attempted to break loose from
the debased Hindu polytheism and arrogant supremacy of the Brahmans
by choosing one god, Vishnu, out of the Hindu pantheon and exalting
him into the sole and supreme deity. In his method he thus differed
from Kabir and other reformers, who went outside Hinduism altogether,
preaching a monotheistic faith with one unseen and nameless deity. The
case of the Manbhaos, whose unknown founder made Krishna the one
god, discarding the Vedas and the rest of Hinduism, is analogous
to Jhambaji's movement. His creed much resembles that of the other
Hindu reformers and founders of the Vaishnavite sects. The extreme
tenderness for animal life is a characteristic of most of them,
and would be fostered by the Hindu belief in the transmigration of
souls. The prohibition of liquor is another common feature, to which
Jhambaji added that of all kinds of drugs. His mind, like those of
Kabir and Nanak, was probably influenced by the spectacle of the
comparatively liberal creed of Islam, which had now taken ro