Parmartlii Sect

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This article was written in 1916 when conditions were different. Even in 1916 its contents related only to Central India and did not claim to be true of all of India. It has been archived for its historical value as well as for the insights it gives into British colonial writing about the various communities of India. Indpaedia neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this article. Readers who wish to add fresh information can create a Part II of this article. The general rule is that if we have nothing nice to say about communities other than our own it is best to say nothing at all. Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly on their online archival encyclopædia only after its formal launch. See examples and a tutorial.

From The Tribes And Castes Of The Central Provinces Of India

By R. V. Russell

Of The Indian Civil Service

Superintendent Of Ethnography, Central Provinces

Assisted By Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, Extra Assistant Commissioner

Macmillan And Co., Limited, London, 1916.

NOTE 1: The 'Central Provinces' have since been renamed Madhya Pradesh.

NOTE 2: While reading please keep in mind that all articles in this series have been scanned from the original book. Therefore, footnotes have got inserted into the main text of the article, interrupting the flow. Readers who spot these footnotes gone astray might like to shift them to their correct place.

Parmartlii Sect

A Vishnuite sect of which 26,000 persons were returned as members in the census of 1901. Nearly all of these belonged to the Uriya State of Kalahandi, since transferred to Bihar and Orissa. The following account of the sect has been furnished by Rai Bahadur Panda Baij- nath, formerly Diwan of Kalahandi State. This sect penetrated the State from the Orissa side, and seems to belong to Bengal. In the beginning it consisted only in pure devotion to the worship of Krishna, but later it has been degraded by sexual indulgence and immorality, and this appears to be the main basis of its ritual at present. Outwardly its followers recite the Bhagavad Gita and pretend to be persons of very high morals. Their secret practices were obtained from one of his officials who had entered ^ Tribes and Castes, article Suthra Shahi.

the sect in the lowest grade. On the day of initiation there is a great meeting of members at the cost of the neophyte. A text is taught to him, and the initiation is completed by all the members partaking together of a feast without dis- tinction of caste. The food eaten at this is considered to be Mahaprasad, or as if offered to Vishnu in his form ofJagannath at Puri, and to be therefore incapable of defilement.

The mantra or text taught to the disciple is as follows : O Hari, O Krishna, O Hari, O Krishna, O Krishna, O Krishna, O Hari, O Hari, O Hari, O Ramo, O Hari, O Ramo, O Ramo, O Ramo, O Hari, O Hari. The disciple is enjoined to repeat this text a prescribed number of times, io8 or more, every day. To those pupils who show their devotional ardour by continual repetition of the first text others are taught. The next step is that the disciple should associate him- self or herself with some other Parmarthi of the opposite sex and tend and serve them. This relation, which is known as Asra-patro, cannot exist between husband and wife, some other person having to be chosen in each case, and it results of course in an immoral connection. Following this is the further rite of Alnw-Samarpana or offering of oneself, in which the disciple is required to give his wife to the Guru or preceptor as the acme of self-sacrifice. The gtcru calls the disciple by a female name of one of the milkmaids of Brindaban to indicate that the disciple regards Krishna with the same devotion as they did. Sometimes the guru and a woman personate Krishna and Radha, but reverse the names, the guru calling himself Radha and the woman Krishna.

The other disciples wait upon and serve them, and they per- form an immoral act in public. Parmarthi women some- times have the mantra or text, ' O Hari, O Krishna,' tattooed on their breasts. The Parmarthis often deny the accusation of immorality, and the above statements may not be true of all of them ; but they are believed to be true as regards a considerable part of the sect at any rate. " With all his cleanliness, vegetarianism and teetotal ism," one writer remarks, "the Vaishnava is perhaps the most dangerous in the whole list

of Hindu sects. He has done very good service in civilising the lower classes to some extent and in suppressing the horrors of the Tantric worship.

But the moral laxity which the Vaishnava encourages by the stories of the illicit loves between the God and Goddess, and by the strong tendency to imitate them which his teachings generate, outweigh the good done by him." This statement applies, however, prin- cipally to one or two sects devoted to Krishna, and by no means to all nor to the majority of the Vaishnava sects.