ct to this sect, which may be compared with
the Mormons in America or the Skoptsy in Russia, and it is numerous only
in certain parts of India (especially Bengal and Assam) but since a
section of Brahmans patronize it, it must be reckoned as a phase of
Hinduism and even at the present day it is an important phase.

There are many cults prevalent in India, though not recognized as sects,
in which the worship of some aboriginal deity is accepted in all its
crudeness without much admixture of philosophy, the only change being
that the deity is described as a form, incarnation or servant of some
well-known god and that Brahmans are connected with this worship. This
habit of absorbing aboriginal superstitions materially lowers the
average level of creed and ritual. An educated Brahman would laugh at
the idea that village superstitions can be taken seriously as religion
but he does not condemn them and, as superstitions, he does not
disbelieve in them. It is chiefly owing to this habit that Hinduism has
spread all over India and its treatment of men and gods is curiously
parallel. Princes like the Manipuris of Assam came under Hindu influence
and were finally recognized as Kshattiyas with an imaginary pedigree,
and on the same principle their deities are recognized as forms of Siva
or Durga. And Siva and Durga themselves were built up in past ages out
of aboriginal beliefs, though the cement holding their figures together
is Indian thought and philosophy, which are able to see in grotesque
rustic godlings an expression of cosmic forces.

Though this is the principal method by which Hinduism has been
propagated, direct missionary effort has not been wanting. For instance
a large part of Assam was converted by the preaching of Vishnuite
teachers in the sixteenth century and the process still continues[21].
But on the whole the missionary spirit characterizes Buddhism rather
than Hinduism. Buddhist missionaries preached their faith, without any
political motive, wherever they could penetrate. But in such countries
as Camboja, Hinduism was primarily the religion of the foreign settlers
and when the political power of the Brahmans began to wane, the people
embraced Buddhism. Outside India it was perhaps only in Java and the
neighbouring islands that Hinduism (with an admixture of Buddhism)
became the religion of the natives.

Many features of Hinduism, its steady though slow conquest of India, its
extraordinary vitality and tena