ful men of their caste. They perfected the Sanscrit language and used it in writing. The common people used a dialect, Prakrit. This made another barrier between learning and the people.

Rajputs. The warrior caste is called the Rajput. It probably grew up out of the custom of rewarding the strongest and bravest soldiers with presents of lands and slaves. This is the royal stock. The name means prince, son of a rajah or king.

Vaisyas. The third caste in descending order, made up of the agriculturists, traders, and higher craftsmen, was called Vaisya, the old name for the whole people.

These three classes were all of Aryan stock; twiceborn, they called themselves.

Sudras.

The conquered non-Aryans composed the fourth or Sudra class. The Sudras were the slaves of the other castes.

THE SCYTHIANS.

About the time the Romans were making incursions into England, 100 B. c. to 500 A. D., the Rajputs of India were trying to repel the Scythians, the first of the Tartar tribes to overrun India. These Tartars, or Huns, neither conquered nor were conquered; they were absorbed, and eventually accepted the religion. The Scythians were the last of the invading people that embraced the religions of India, Buddhism and Brahmanism.

These three peoples, the Non-Aryans, the Aryans, and the Scythians, make up the people called Hindus. Buddhism; Brahmanism; Hinduism. Out of the Brahman religion rose, in the fifth century B.C., Buddhism. For a time it was a formidable rival of Brahmanism, but by 900 A.D. it was almost lost in India in the parent stream, though it is still the religion of millions of the people of Asia.

Buddhism. Gautama was the son of a king of a province north of Benares. His father wished him to be a warrior like himself, but while young he renounced the world, was taught by two Brahman hermits, gave himself up to fasting and penance, and came out, after many temptations, purified, Buddha, - the Enlightened.

He began near Benares preaching, not to the sacred caste alone, as was the custom of the Brahmans, but to the common people. He converted disciples and sent them forth to spread the religion. His creed did not admit the efficacy of sacrifices or the value of the mediation of the Brahmans between God and man. He taught that "misery or happiness in this life is the unavoidable result of our conduct in a past life; and our actions here will determine our happiness or misery in the life to come. Instead of Brahman sacrifices he urged three great duties: control over self, kindness to other men, and reverence for the life of all living things. Arnold's Light of Asia has made

the world familiar with the beautiful part of this religion. The teachings of Buddha did much to unite the people and break down caste, for Buddha's disciples taught all classes. The Brahmans taught those of the Brahman caste only. But Buddhism in India was overpowered by Brahmanism, or Hinduism, before it had completed its work.

Brahmanism. - Brahmanism took in Buddhism and other Indian beliefs, and became in time so modified that it now appears as the religious factor in Hinduism. The words Brahmanism and Hinduism seem to be used interchangeably.

Hinduism. This is a fusion of the laws and customs of all the Hindus, and of the religions of the Aborigines, the Brahmans, and the Buddhists. Every Hindu is soaked in Hinduism. It directs his social, his business, and his religious life. It governs social and business relations by acknowledging castes, not the original four alone, but all the classes and trade guilds that have grown out of these four.

To the Oriental mind the Hindu religion is alluring, mystical, enthralling. To the Western mind it is more likely to appear merely perplexing and elusive. In order that we may understand some of the problems set for the early English rulers in India, Hinduism must be touched upon. A French traveller, André Chevrillon, who visited the cities of India and was

impressed by the philosophy of Hinduism and the fact that it permeates all things in Benares and other Hindu cities, says of Hinduism: 1"We must conceive, then, in the beginning and at the root of all things the absolute Being, pure and void, which is at the bottom of all forms and all germs. Developing itself outward it is subjected to Maya, illusion. . . . Illusion being recognized as such, what is more natural than a wish to escape from it? And how succeed in doing this, unless by destroying in one's self all that makes part of this illusive and fugitive world; namely, desire, will, sensation? . . . For to immobility all Hindu philosophy practically leads. . . . That a man may

enter into calm, he must hold his breath, fix his attention, destroy his senses, cease from speaking. He presses his palate with the tip of his tongue, breathes slowly, looks fixedly at a point in space, and thought ceases, consciousness is abolished, the feeling of personality vanishes. 'We shall cease to feel pleasure and pain, having attained immobility and solitude.' . . . 'As a spider rising by means of its own thread gains the open space, so he who meditates rises by means of the syllable Oм, and gains independence."" This syllable Oм recalls to the Brahman the three persons of the Hindu trinity: Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the preserver; Siva, the destroyer and reproducer.

1 In India, André Chevrillon.

"Thought and will being abolished, the whole phantasmagoria of Maya disappears: 'We become like a fire without smoke, or like a traveller, who, having left the carriage which brought him, watches the revolution of its wheels.' 'The man who sees a difference between Brahma and the world goes from change to change, from death to death.' That is to say, he will forever be reborn. . . . He who, knowing the Vedas and having repeated them daily in a consecrated place, having made no creature suffer, concentrates his thoughts upon the Existence, and is absorbed therein, attains the world of Brahma and returns no more; no, he returns no more.' . . . Such is the supreme felicity reserved for the adepts of the mysterious doctrine celebrated by the Upanishads with a solemnity of language which gives an idea of the fervor, the enthusiasm, the restrained hope wherewith the Brahman is thrilled, as he looks forward to that day of deliverance after which he will never again say Me of himself."

If the Hindu is striving daily to lose all sense of the Me, is it not possible for us to understand that he might submit with apathy to what would appear to us to be misfortune or disgrace, and even accept death with calmness and fortitude as did the Brahman Nuncomar, because he could hope to be absorbed into Brahma? Yet he might revolt in desperation against a thing that to us seems trivial, such as the greased cartridges that pre