Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 6.4.6

6.4.6

The Fakires, it is said, exercise painful austerities in the confident hope that they will be Rajas in their renascent state; or, if they do not become Rajas, that they shall be placed in a condition of life capable of more exquisite enjoyment than is experienced by those sovereign princes: but, as I have frequently observed to them, how can it be believed that men submit to a life of so much misery for the sake of a second state of existence, as short and uncertain as the first, and which cannot be expected to yield a much greater degree of happiness even to him who may be invested with the high dignity of Raja, or who may resemble Jesseingue or Jessomseingue, the two most powerful Rajas of the Indies? I am not to be so easily deceived, said I to them; either you are egregious fools, or you are actuated by some sinister views which you carefully hide from the world. Some of the Fakires enjoy the reputation of being peculiarly enlightened saints, perfect Jaugis, and really united to God. These are supposed to have entirely renounced the world; and like our hermits they live a secluded life in a remote garden, without ever visiting a town. When food is brought to them, they receive it: if none be offered to them it is concluded that the holy men can live without food, that they subsist by the favour of God, vouchsafed on account of previous long fasts and other religious mortifications. Frequently these pious Jaugis are absorbed in profound meditation.