(b) Sindhi is spoken in the lower valley of the Indus.

(c) Hindi, which in its purest form closely resembles the parent Sanscrit, and is written in the Nâgari character, is spoken in various dialects in the North-West Provinces. (d) Bengali is spoken in the lower valley of the Ganges.

(e) Marhatti prevails chiefly in the Bombay Presidency. This Hindu race showed its native bravery in the seventeenth century, by overthrowing the Mohammedan power. It was from the Marhattas and the Sikhs as Hindus, and not from the Mohammedans, that we won India.

(ƒ) Singalese is derived from the Pali. India. It was used by the Buddhists and with Buddhism to Ceylon.

Pali was the language of Magadha in North
Jains for their sacred books, and it travelled

The GREEKS invaded India 327 B.C., under Alexander the Great, but left no permanent settlement behind, though the influence of the Greek type of sculpture long survived in Indian art.

SCYTHIC influences and a Scythic era also mark the annals of India from 57 B.C. downwards, and some of the Rajput tribes are traced back to them.

III. The next wave of conquest was that of the MOHAMMEDANS, who entered India in the eleventh century, and made successive conquests. They brought with them their native Arabic; and Arabic inscriptions adorn the magnificent mosques, halls, palaces, and tombs, which they raised chiefly in the seventeenth century. Half the present Mohammedan population in India is Musalman in race.

The religions of India may be classified as follows:

I. BRAHMANISM, the religion of the Aryans, which found its earliest exposition in the hymns of the Vedas, and its development in the institutes of Manu. Originally it was monotheistic. The Rig-Veda, usually placed The Rig-Veda, usually placed 1400 years B.C., consists of a series of hymns addressed to bright friendly gods, devas, literally, "the shining ones," the great powers of nature, the father-heaven, mother-earth, the encompassing sky. Brahma, the creator, has no separate existence in these hymns. Vishnu, the preserver, is but slightly known, and Siva, the destroyer, appears as Rudra, the god of tempests. The potent prayer was called Brahma, and he who offered it Brahman. Aleady in the Vedas sacrifices are enjoined, the man-sacrifice, and the great horse-sacrifice of six hundred animals that was substituted for it. And thus by degrees sprang up the four great CASTES: (1) the Brahmans, or priests; (2) the Kshastrias, or warriors, now called Rajputs; (3) the Vaisyas, or husbandmen, and beneath these (4) the servile class, or Sudras, "the slaves of black descent." After a long struggle between the priestly and warrior castes, the former prevailed, and established their supremacy_as the makers of Sanscrit literature, and the priests and teachers of the people. The Brahman's life was one of discipline. Study occupied his early years; then marriage and family life, next seclusion and devotion, and lastly mendicacy, asceticism, and absorption. Throughout life he practised strict abstinence, recognising the transitory vanity of human life. "What is the world?" says a Brahman sage. "It is even as the bough of a tree on which a bird rests for a night, and in the morning flies away." Self-culture, self-restraint, was the ideal life. Hence, amidst all the changes of history the Brahman in India, refined in features, tall and slim, has calmly ruled.

Brahmanism in its growth and spread strikingly illustrates the teachings of Holy Scripture regarding the gradual lapse of man from a pure and simple faith, from the knowledge of God, into idolatry and superstition. "Knowing God, they glorified Him not as God, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." Brahma the creator became a mere abstract name; Vishnu the preserver received ten incarnations (Avatars) Rama and Krishna being the chief, and Siva the destroyer and reproducer became the embodiment of wrath and lust. The most prominent doctrine of philosophical Brahmanism became the transmigration of souls, ending with absorption into the Supreme Being.

II. BUDDHISM, now the religion, in a degraded form, of one-third of the human race, had its origin in India, whence it has long been exiled. Its founder was Gautǎma, son of a prince of the Sakyan clan, born B.C. 623, a hundred miles north of Benares.

INTRODUCTORY.

After his student and married life, he retired, when thirty years old, to a cave near Gaya, in the Patna district, and this epoch in his life is called "his Great Renunciation." But instead of finding peace in his fasting and seclusion, he reached a crisis of despair, passed through a conflict with the powers of darkness, and emerged with new light and knowledge, to be henceforth know as Buddha, "the Enlightened." This era is known as that of "his Enlightenment." Now he began to live and preach a new life of love and kindness among men, condemning caste, proclaiming the equality of men, and setting before them Nirvâna, i.e. cessation, not of existence, but of sin and sorrow, as their final goal. He began this public teaching at the age of thirtysix, and for forty years he laboured. His last words were, "Work out your own salvation with diligence; keep your mind upon my teaching; all things change, but this changes not. I desire to depart; I desire Nirvâna, the eternal rest."

The secret of Gautama Buddha's success was the truth which his preaching affirmed, viz. (a) the overthrow of caste, the equality of Sudra, if just and holy, with Brahman; (b) the law of Karma, i.e. conscience or responsibility, that what a man sows he must reap; (c) the law of justice and of kindness; and (d) Nirvâna, the cessation of all causes of sorrow, to be attained by the practice of virtue. The date of his death is B.C. 543.

Buddhism was a missionary religion, and it spread as a gospel through India. Its Constantine was Asoka, grandson of Chandra Gupta, and King of Maghada (B.C. 250), whose edicts in Pali inscriptions indicate the humanity and kindness of the teaching which the system promulgated. The son of Asoka became Buddhist missionary to Ceylon, and the system spread all over India, as the Topes and Caves of early Buddhism indicate. But it borrowed much from Brahmanism, namely, the doctrine of transmigration, the practice of asceticism, and the recognition of a priestly order. Relics of Buddha were cherished and adored, and shrines built over them. Images of the saint himself were multiplied and became objects of worship. But in process of time Brahmanism in India triumphed over its rival. Buddhism lacked a personal God, it was a form of atheism; it failed to recognize the doctrines of human sin, and of expiation by sacrifice; and here the Brahmins had the advantage, and in time regained their influence and their supremacy. By the tenth century of the Christian era, Buddhism was in India an exiled religion, finding its home in Thibet and Ceylon, in China and Burmah. It has since degenerated into an elaborate Ritualism, akin to Romanism, with the image of Buddha for the crucifix, the goddess of mercy for the Virgin, a shaven, robed and celibate priesthood, altar and lights, the rosary and penance, monks and nuns, purgatory in its series of hells, prayers for the dead, and in Thibet, a pope.

III. HINDUISM is the modern development in India of the religion of the Brahmans, modified by Buddhist teaching. And here again we find only degeneracy from the primitive standards. The Brahmans themselves have in many parts degenerated, and are corpulent, self-indulgent, immoral, worldly-minded men. Caste in all its tyranny prevails. Woman is immured in ignorance, and doomed to slavery. Married when a child, if the child-husband dies, she is a widow for life, doomed to drudgery and neglect. The temples are adorned with revolting and obscene sculptures and frescces. The images of idolatry are hideous, the objects of adoration countless. VISHNUVISM, or the worship of Vishnu the preserver, and his many incarnations, and SAIVISM, or the worship of Siva the destroyer, form in the present day the very heart and soul of Hinduism. The old idolatry of serpents, trees and stones, borrowed, perhaps, from the non-Aryan tribes, has been adopted into the system, and the Linga bedaubed with red ochre is the popular idol. The Puranas are the writings that form the basis of modern Hinduism, and they disclose Phallic worship in all its loathsomeness. The chief daily ceremony in all temples, after washing and dressing the idol, and burning lights and incense before it, consists in offering it food of some kind,-boiled rice, grain, sweetmeats, fruits, and decorating it with flowers. The smallest village has its own peculiar symbols of worship, rough idols and mere blocks of stone or wood, consecrated to local deities by patches of red paint.

IV. MOHAMMEDANISM appeared in India, first, about the eleventh century, and gained a permanent footing by the conquests of the Moguls. In the seventeenth century

its sway was universal in North India. It proclaimed the doctrine, "there is one God, and Mohammed is His prophet," and it built its giant mosques in the great cities. It made many converts; and the Mohammedan population now numbers forty-one millions. But it is a religion, not of love, but of selfishness, lust, and hatred. Most of the Indian Mohammedans are of the Sunni sect. They neither eat nor intermarry with Hindus. Butchers, cooks, and table-servants are for the most part Mohammedans, these occupations being unlawful religiously for the Hindus. Dhirzis, or tailors, are Musalmans, and most grooms (syces), and coachmen, Dhobis, or washermen, bhistis, or watercarriers, and bearers or house servants are Hindus. The Mohammedans of India ill brook our supremacy. They are ambitious alike of learning and of power.

V. The JAINS are a small sect, but very old, akin to the Buddhists, but having an independent origin. They are a wealthy community, distinguished by the beauty and costliness of their temples, and the multiplicity of their hospitals, especially those for diseased and decrepit animals; they lay great stress on the doctrine of transmigration of souls, and will sweep the seat on which they would sit, or the path along which they would walk, lest they should unwittingly crush an insect. Their chief distinctive feature is saint worship, and their most important holy places of pilgrimage are Mount Abu in the west, and Parasnath in the east.

VI. The PARSIS are of Persian origin, and are settled chiefly in Bombay, where they have become wealthy and prosperous. They hold the tenets of Zoroaster, and worship the four elements, fire, air, earth and water. The supreme being, called Ormazd, is with them not self-existent, but derived, and they are polytheists in the most rigid sense of the term. They wear a peculiar head-dress, somewhat like a mitre; their scriptures are the Zendavesta; their tongue is akin to Arabic, but they speak English.

To this brief epitome of the races, languages and religions, that from time to time have taken root in India, there remain to be added the settlements of the PORTUGUESE and FRENCH in the sixteenth century, on the east and west coasts, and the settlements and conquests of BRITAIN, consummating in the establishment of her direct rule over one hundred and eighty-six millions of the population, and her protectorate over feudatory states numbering fifty-four millions of souls. Side by side with British conquest, CHRISTIAN MISSIONS have advanced, at first discountenanced, but afterwards protected and encouraged, carrying the truth as it is in JESUS into the cities and villages of the land, unfurling the banner of the Cross amidst the teeming populations, and bringing in its train the civilising and elevating influences of education, science and inventions. Britain has done much for India; there still remains much to be done. Forty millions of our fellow subjects go through life on insufficient food. The food supply must be adjusted by equal land laws to the growing population, and Government expenses must be brought down to the level of a just and bearable taxation. Two hundred millions are the votaries of a debasing idolatry. Christianity and Education hand in hand must accomplish their work of enlightenment for women as well as for men throughout the land.

The order of places in this work follows the route of my journey, beginning with Point de Galle and ending with Bombay. I am indebted to many tourists like myself who have given their impressions to the world for descriptions of scenes which I was unable to visit. For the general subject there are no writers to whom I owe more than to Dr. JAMES FERGUSSON, the great authority on Indian Architecture, and to Dr. W. W. HUNTER, India's ablest statistician. Dr. Hunter's writings have been of invaluable service to me; they stand pre-eminent alike for accuracy of detail, and largeness, breadth, and magnanimity of judgment. The valuable Manual of ROPER LETHRIDGE, Esq., has also been helpful to me. With reference to Ceylon, I am specially indebted to J. W. RHYS DAVIDS, Esq., the Hibbert Lecturer. I beg further to acknowledge the assistance rendered me by RICHARD GARNETT, Esq., of the British Museum Library, GEORGE LOCH, Esq., of the India Civil Service, and Dr. ROST of the India Office. At the suggestion of Sir J. RISDON BENNETT, M.D., I have prefixed this short INTRODUCTION on Indian Ethnology, Languages, and Religions.

CEYLON.