Vaishnava missionaries have largely taught in the women's apartments of Calcutta. The finest temples in Northern India owe their origin to this sect, who have coin() to regard themselves as a distinct caste. They are known in Bengal as the Baisnab, a dialectal change of Vaishnava, apper taining to Vishnu, but they are not a numerous sect ; in Bengal they have only 428,000 followers; in Southern India, the followers of Chaitanya are known generally as the Satani, which is supposed to be a variation from Chaitanya, or taken from Sanatana, one of Chaitanya's most celebrated dis ciples ;. in the southern part of India, they are almost all of the Teling-speaking people, but they have not become numerous.
The most .deplorable part of the Vaishnava worship of the present day is that which has covered the walls of temples with indecent figures, and has filled their temples with licentious rites.
As a rule, the dead of the Vaishnava Hindus are burned. As death dmws near, a lamp is lit at the. bed-head, and a holm sacrifice performed with camphor and a cocoanut ; and as life dies away, the five elements are dropped into the mouth of the moribund from a tulsi leaf. Within two or three hours the body is lifted, and this is done early, as none of the household nor any of the neighbours can partake of food until the remains be disposed of. The pile of wood or cow-dung cakes used is about two feet high, and on it are placed some tulsi leaves, a little sandal wood ; and the deceased is laid with his feet to the north. When laid on the pile, a cloth is placed over the face, and raw rice is placed on it over the mouth. The heir of the deceased places
a charred bit of sandal-wood or a tulsi branch at each corner of the pile, and a Vityan sets fire to the mat, using fire taken from the sacred fire lit at the bedside of the dying man. On the follow ing day the beir and friends visit the pile, remove the skull and the bones, on which he and all with him pour water and wash them,—wash them with the sikai, anoint them vrith oil and honey, and clean them with milk, and place them all on plantain leaves anointed with butter. A young cocoanut shoot is then placed on the skull, and the whole put into an unburned earthen pot, and taken or sent to a river or to the sea, the person who conveyed it returning to the temple, where he pronounces aloud the deceased's name and adds pray for him.' Often they are sent' to a holy river even to the Ganges at Benares. The adult male relatives shave. The hair of the Brahman widow's head is shaved. The body is not always carried through the doorway of the house. If it be an inauspicious day, or if the house door be so placed that the courtyard has to be crossed, then the remains are carried through an opening broken in the wall. The remains are unclothed for the last rites. Children under eight years of age and unmarried girls are buried, as also are all who die of small-pox, as the belief is that this ailment is a manifestation of the presence of the goddess Ammun, Mariathi, or Kali, and the anger of the goddess would revert to the family if the body were burned.—Wilson.