eal with three out of the four great
faiths of the world--Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism--and we have to
uphold for ourselves the fourth, Christianity. Secondly, we have also
within the borders of our empire a multiplicity of races and tribes;
and we have the peculiar Indian institution of Caste, which marks off
all Hindu society into innumerable groups, distinguished one from
another by the rules that forbid intermarriage and (in most cases) the
sharing of food. Now the word Hindu requires a special explanation,
because there is nothing exactly like it elsewhere in the world; it is
not exclusively a religious denomination; it denotes also a country
and a race. When we speak of a Christian, a Mohammedan, or a Buddhist,
we mean a particular religious community without distinction of race
or country. When we talk of Persians or Chinese, we indicate country
or parentage without any necessary distinction of creed. But when a
man tells me he is a Hindu, I know that he means all three things
together--religion, race and country. I can be almost sure that he is
an inhabitant of India, quite sure that he is of Indian parentage; and
as to religion, the word Hindu undoubtedly locates him within one of
the manifold groups who follow the ordinances and worship the gods of
Hinduism. Next in importance to the Hindus, as a religious community,
come the Mohammedans, who number over sixty millions in India. The two
faiths, Hinduism and Islam--polytheism and monotheism--are in strong
opposition to each other; yet they are not quite clean cut apart, for
some Hindu tribes that have been converted to Islam retain in part
their primitive customs of worship and caste. And in Burmah, as in
Ceylon, the population is almost wholly Buddhist.

In a very able article that has recently appeared in an Indian
magazine, the writer, a Hindu, observes: 'The Hindus offer a curious
instance of a people without any feeling of nationality.' He finds an
explanation in 'the intensity of religiousness, which led to
sectarianism, and allying itself with caste, tended to preserve all
local and tribal differences.' Other causes, historical, political,
and geographical, might be mentioned, but I agree that the chief
separating influence has been religious. And, however this may be, it
may be affirmed that within our Indian empire at the present moment
the primary superior designation of a man is according to his
religion--he is either a Hindu, a Mohammedan, or a Budd