on some important business negotiation connected with Bombay or the
west of India; for they are Bhattias, who are also followers of
the most singular religion the world has ever known--that of the
Vallàbháchárya or Maharaja sect. These are Epicureans who have quite
exceeded, as well in their formal creeds as in their actual practices,
the wildest dreams of any of those mortals who have endeavored to
make a religion of luxury. They are called Vallàbhácháryas, from
_Vallabha_, the name of their founder, who dates from 1479, and
_áchárya_, a "leader." Their _Pushti Marga_, or eat-and-drink
doctrine, is briefly this: In the centre of heaven (_Gouloka_) sits
Krishna, of the complexion of a dark cloud, clad in yellow, covered
with unspeakable jewels, holding a flute. He is accompanied by Roaha,
his wife, and also by three hundred millions of Gopis, or female
attendants, each of whom has her own palace and three millions of
private maids and waiting-women. It appears that once upon a time two
over-loving Gopis quarreled about the god, and, as might be expected
in a place so given over to love, they fell from heaven as a
consequence. Animated by love for them, Krishna descended from heaven,
incarnated himself in the form of Vallabha (founder of the sect), and
finally redeemed them. Vallabha's descendants are therefore all gods,
and reverence is paid them as such, the number of them being now sixty
or seventy. To God belong all things--_Tan_ (the body), _Man_ (the
mind) and _Dhan_ (earthly possessions). The Vallàbhácháryas therefore
give up all first to be enjoyed by their god, together with his
descendants (the Maharajas, as they royally term themselves) and
his representatives, the gosains or priestly teachers. Apply these
doctrines logically, and what a carnival of the senses results! A few
years ago one Karsandas Mulji, a man of talent and education, was sued
for libel in the court at Bombay by this sect, whose practices he
had been exposing. On the trial the evidence revealed such a mass