not be violated; the shedding of blood, whether of man or animals, is a heinous crime. The followers of Kabir do not observe celibacy, and live quiet unostentatious lives; Wilson (p. 97) compares them to Quakers for their hatred of violence and unobtrusive piety. The resemblance of many of Kabir's utterances to those of Christ, and especially to the ideas set forth in St John's gospel, is very striking; still more so is the existence in the ritual of the sect of a sacramental meal, involving the eating of a consecrated wafer and the drinking of water administered by the _Mahant_ or spiritual superior, which bears a remarkable likeness to the Eucharist. Yet, though the deities of Hinduism and the prophet of Islam are frequently mentioned in his sayings, the name of Jesus has nowhere been found in them. It is conjectured that the doctrine of Ramanand, which came from southern India, has been influenced by the Christian settlements in that region, which go back to very early times. It is also possible that Sufiism, the pietistic (as distinguished from the theosophic) form of which seems to owe much to eastern Christianity, has contributed some echo of the Gospel to Kabir's teaching. A third (but scarcely probable) hypothesis is that the sect has borrowed both maxims and ritual, long after Kabir's own time, from the teaching of the Roman Catholic missionaries, who were established at Agra from the reign of Akbar (1556-1605) onwards. No critical edition of the writings current under the name of Kabir has yet been published, though collections of his sayings (chiefly the _Sakhis_) are constantly appearing from Indian presses. The reader is referred, for a summary account of his life and doctrine, to H. H. Wilson's _Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus_ (Works, i. 68 sqq.). Dr E. Trumpp's edition of the _Adi Granth_ (Introduction, pp. xcvii. sqq.) may also be consulted. Recent publications dealing with the subject are the Rev. G. H. Westcott's _Kabir and the Kabir Panth_ (Cawnpore, 1908), and Mr. M. A. Macauliffe's _The Sikh Religion_ (Oxford, 1909), vi. 122-316. (C. J. L.) FOOTNOTES: [1] See article HINDOSTANI LITERATURE. [2] An exactly similar tale is told of Nanak, the first _Guru_ of the Sikhs, who died in 1538. [3] This and the following passages in quotation marks are from Professor Wilson's translation of 100 _Sakhis_, pp. 83-90. [4] Benares; Hara, a name of Siva. [5] I.e. Mecca. [6] "The Bountiful," one of the Koranic names of God (Allah).