FAKIR', a word derived from the Arabic faliar (poor), and designating a member of an order of mendicants or penitents, chiefly in India and the neighboring countries. In Persia and Turkey, the word is also used for Moslem priests and dervishes (see DEnvisii). The origin of fakirism, an institution which reaches back to the most remote antiquity, is lost in mythical darkness. The common account of the son of a mighty rajah, who, expelled from his home and country by the cruelty of his father, made a vow, half in 'revenge, and half in contrition, henceforth to ream a beggar through the world, and to win proselytes to a life of poverty and self-mortification, as the one most befitting in man, and most pleasing to the Deity, can hardly be called historical. The same yearn ing for rest, for peace, and pious contemplation, for escape from the noise and turbu lence of the world, which has everywhere and always led still and pensive minds into seclusion and solitude, must naturally have been more powerful here, in a land which yielded almost of itself, and in abundance, all that was necessary for the sustenance of man—in a climate of flower and sunshine, where a hermit's calm retreat might well rise before the wearied eye in all the soft sunset lines which surround the abode of the recluse in the Ramayaua, or in the Sakoontala. But constant seclusion and ceaseless meditation here, as elsewhere, produced in all but exceptional minds their sad results. Piety is no longer enough; sanctity is the goal. Thus, abstinence becomes mortification and self-tor ture; mental repose, mystic self-absorption, or frenzied exaltation. This leaning of the Hindus to a life of asceticism was fostered by their primeval religion, which enjoins vari ous exercises of penance and mortification upon the three higher castes in general, but upon the Brahmins in particular. These, having passed through different stages of regen eration, end by becoming Sanyassis (" who have left everything"), and are dead to the law. The world and its usages have no more any claim upon them; even religious ceremonies are no longer necessary to the "united with God." They go naked, or in fil thy rags, receive the meanest food only, and that without either demand or thanks. Their ethical code con sists in the observance of truth, chastity, internal purity, constant repentance, and con templation of Deity. After these models fakirism seems chiefly to have been framed, and its adherents were not only pious men, but occasionally saints, workers of miracles, and healers of all ills, especially epilepsy and sterility. The halo which from the first
surrounded fakirism, and the ready worship offered by the people, attracted to its ranks, at a very early date, many whose motives were anything but pure, and who, under a garb of humility and mendicity, collected fabulous treasures. Strabo already distin guishes these vagabonds from the more honest members of their class, and if we may trust the travelers of our own day, the more respectable element has now altogether dis appeared. Their number is variously stated. In the time of Tavernier's visit, there were more than 1,200,000 Hindu, and 800,000 Mohammedan fakirs in the East Indies, and their present number is said to exceed 3,000,000. Papi describes the Mohamme dans as guilty of the greater follies. At times, especially in their return from distant pilgrimages, they are even dangerous, as the killing of an unbeliever is supposed to he an infallible introduction to the glories of paradise. They live either separately as her mits or solitary mendicants, or unite in large gangs, carrying arms and a banner, beating drums, and sounding horns as they approach a town or village. Their appearance is disgusting in the extreme; they go naked, besmeared with the dung of the holy animal, the cow. Some bedeck themselves with the skins of serpents, some with human bones; others array themselves in the garb of women. Their fearful shrieks, and the hideous rollings of their eyes, add to the disgust of their appearance. Imitating madmen, they generally end by becoming madmen. The height to which self-torture is frequently carried by these wretched fanatics, and of which we meet with signs even so far back as the Ramayana, where a penitent is described as perpetually sitting with upraised arms between four fires, the sun forming the fifth, is so appalling that human nature shrinks from the mere description. Sonic pass their whole lives in iron cages, laden with heavy chains; some clinch their fists till their nails grow through the hand ; others hold aloft both their arms till they become like withered branches; while others, again, tie their hands and feet together, and roll head over heels for thousands of miles. Not the least sad feature in all this is, that these religions antics are not confined to men, but that youths, and even children of tender age, are occasionally initiated therein.