d
years B.C. to as many years after she is practically uninfluenced by
foreign doctrine, save in externals.

It is of course permissible to separate the reforming sects of
the last few decades from the older reformers; but since we see both
in their aim and in their foreign sources (amalgamation with cis-Indic
belief) only a logical if not an historical continuance of the older
deists, we prefer to treat of them all as factors of one whole; and,
from a broader point of view, as successors to the still older
pantheistic and unitarian reformers who first predicated a supreme
spirit as _ens realissimum_, when still surrounded by the clouds of
primitive polytheism. Kab[=i]r and D[=a]d[=u], the two most important
of the more modern reformers, we have named above as nominal adherents
of the R[=a]m[=a]nand sect. But neither was really a sectarian
Vishnuite.[96] Kab[=i]r, probably of the beginning of the fifteenth
century, the most famous of R[=a]m[=a]nand's disciples, has as
religious descendants the sect of the Kab[=i]r Panth[=i]s. But no less
an organization than that of the Sikhs look back to him, pretending to
be his followers. The religious tenets of the Kab[=i]r Panth[=i]s may
be described as those of unsectarian Unitarians. They conform to no
rites or _mantras_. Kab[=i]r assailed all idolatry, ridiculed the
authority of all scriptures, broke with Pundit and with Mohammedan,
taught that outer form is of no consequence, and that only the 'inner
man' is of importance. These Panth[=i]s are found in the South, but
are located chiefly in and about Benares, in Bengal in the East, and
in Bombay in the West. There are said to be twelve divisions of them.
Kab[=i]r assailed idolatry, but alas! Discipline requires
subordination. The Guru, Teacher, must be obeyed. It was not long
before he who rejected idolatry became himself a deity. And in fact,
every Teacher, Guru, of the sect was an absolute master of thought,
and was revered as a god.[97]

In the fifteenth century, near Laho[.r]e, was born N[=a]nak (1469),
who is the nominal founder of the Sikhs, a body which, as N[=a]nak
claimed, was a sect embodying the religion of Kab[=i]r himself, of
whom he claimed to be a follower. The Granth, or bible of the Sikhs,
was first compiled by the pontiff Arjun, in the sixteenth century.
Besides the portions written by N[=a]nak and Arjun himself, there were
collected into it extracts from the works of 'twelve and a half' other
contributors t