Since the 7th century of the Christian era, conquerors from the north-west, traders from Arabia, and zealous missionaries professing Muham madanism, have been advancing into India, China, and the weSkern islands of the Archipelago ; and the numbers-Vrofessing this faith in S. and E. Asia may now' mount to about 200 millions of souls.
The Vedas of th Hindus are in Sanskrit. They do not seem to have been translated as a whole into any of the vernadular tongues of India, and there are but few Braslonans who can read and understand them, though\ they learn portions by heart. They are considere a revelation ; and the lal-vs of Menu, the Puranas legendary histories of India, the Tantras, and the ix orthodox Hindu systems of philosophy, all deri e their a-uthority from their agreement with the Vedas. It was the Vedas of which the Buddha Sakya Muni denied the authority. In the Vedanta phil ophy, the beginning of all wisdom is said to be a desire to know. God, who is the cause of the univerki, and this is to be learned from the Scripture. Pke Nyaya philosophy acknowledges four sources oic knowledge,—perception, induction, analogy, and the -word or Veda. The Vaiseshika philosoPhy is an atomistic system, not favourably looked on by the Brahmans, nevertheless proclaims the absolute authority of the Veda. The Sankhya philosophy is atheistic ; it maintains that a personal God cannot be proved, though it so far conforms as to admit the received doctrine of the Veda as evi dence in addition to perception and induction. The Puranas, or old books, superseded the Veda. The Buddhist religion of Burma is likewise a philosophy. The British rulers of India have allowed the utmost religious freedom to all the races under their sway, and the Bible has never been used as a class-book in any Government school in British India. This has been denounced by earnest rnen as time-serving. However, the Koran and the Vedas axe equally excluded ; but the grant-in -aid rules of 1854 permit money allowances to every school in India where edu cation up to a certain standard is imparted, and in these grants every Christian school can equally share. To gain a full knowledge of the Veda, the Zendavesta, the Tripitaka, of the Old Testa ment, the Koran, or the sacred books of China, would be the work of a long life.
Sir John Lubbock has pointed out that both in Aryan and Semitic races there have existed several minor creeds, which in process of ages have disappeared. In the Aryan race, for ex ample, there have been the religions of Greece and Rome, Odin-worship, and Druidism. Iu the Semitic race, there have been the Assyrian, Phcenician, and sundry other idolatries. But in each race there has also been one great religion, which, beginning at the very dawn of history, has lasted to the present hour, namely, Vedic-Brah manism among the Aryans, and Judaism in the Semitic race. And each of these great religions has had two vast offshoots or schisms, which also still survive, namely Zoroastrianism a,nd Buddhism from Brahmanism, and Christianity and Islam from Judaism. Further, all six of these religions are possessed of a sacred literature, to which divine authority is attributed by their adherents, namely, among the Aryans— The Vedas of the Brahmans.
The Zendavesta of the Zoroastrians. The Tripitaka of the Buddhists.
And among the Semitic race— The Old Testament of the Jews.
The New Testament of the Christians. The Koran of Muharnmadans.
Besides these Aryan and Semitic Scriptures, there only exist in the world two other ancient sacred books of any value, namely, the Kings of the Confucian Chinese, and the Tao-tze King of the Taoists of China ; the Grunth of the Sikhs being a comparatively modern work.
Lastly, as if to perfect the parallel, recent cal culations tend to show that at the present hour, after 4000 years of development, the great reli gions of the Semitic and Aryan races are almost on an equality in point of numbers—Brahmanism and Buddhism, with the small remnant of Zoroas trians, counting together (according to an author ity accepted by Professor Muller) about 44 per cent. of the human race ; and Judaism, Islam, and Christianity numbering nearly 45 per cent. on the same calculation.
The great bulk of the races in Southern d Eastern Asia are of the Muhammadan, the B uddhist, the Brahinanical, and Sintu religions. T e Muharnmadans believe in God, in a future stat 2 \ in a juclg)rient for blessing or for condemn ation, NI:thorned tho last and greatest of the prophets of God ; the Koran tth a divine revelation ; in klialifaa as successors of Mahomed, and in many saints and shrines. They believe, also, in the corning of a Mehdi, who is to be the last of the Imams, and who will inaugurate an era when Islam, now militant, will be finally triumph ant. They designate their religion Islam, salva tion, and stylo themselves Musalman, of the saving faith, 31uhanunadanisin is essentially a proselytizing religion ; the craving of all its pro fessors being t,o convert all mankind to a belief in God and in Mahomed as His prophet. I3itt with this EIS tho essential tenet, they have many diverse sects, of every shade of belief, from a pure mono theism to a recognised series of incarnations still in progress. They occupy parts of Europe and Africa, much of the south of Asia, and eastwards into the Archipelago. In the sonth-west of the Asiatic continent, Persia with its 7,658,000 in habitants is almost exclusively of the Shiah form of Muhainmadanism, with a tnere sprinkling of Jews, Armenian Christians, and Zoroastrian fire worshippers. But Persia is almost alone in this form of the faith. It is enclosed on three sides by races following the Sunni traditions,—by Arabs to the S.W. and W.; by Turks in Asia to the N.W. and N. ; with Uzbak also on its north ; Bokhariots and Turkoman to the N.E., and Afghan tribes, Makrani, Much, and Sindi, on its east; and the Turkoman make the sectarian difference in their belief a ground for considering Persia heretical. Until the present day they raid Persian tenitory, and steal and sell the captives as slaves. Persia is to them a hostile country, a dar-ul-harb, on which they may lawfully make war. In this region tho Muhammadan population is estimated to be 36,000,000.