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Updated: May 31, 2025
They take care also to display, in glaring red and white paint, upon their foreheads and arms, the various insignia or marks of Sheva, such as the trident. Occasionally one also flourishes about a steel trident, which the figure of Mahado always wields in his hand, and which is also placed on the summit of his temple. The Soneeassees are the most impudent and importunate of beggars.
These Soneeassees seldom adhere to the letter of their religion in the present day, although it is said that in times gone by some of their class have sat absorbed and abstracted until their spirit held communion with the great god their bodies wasting away from neglect, and their nails growing like claws.
Their heads are differently treated from those of the Soneeassees, for both men and women have the crown shaved quite smooth. Both sexes wear a piece of cloth checked like shepherd's plaid. They have great strings of wooden beads, or malâhs, turned out of the stalks of the holy toolsie, round their necks; and they generally collect their rice and cowries in a dried gourd-shell.
I do not mean that there are no religious mendicants to be found at home; but although the object to be attained in both countries may be similar, the agents employed in the East are so different, that a description of them will to many European readers have all the gloss of novelty. The two principal sects in Bengal are known as Soneeassees and Byrâgees. The former exclusively worship Mahado.
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