RELIGION.
Froln the earliest times India has been a land of numerous religions, and the creeds professed there to-day are almost as great in number :Is they are varied in spirit and character. The majority of the people acknowledge Hinduism or Brahmanism (q.v.) as their faith. In the census of 1901 their number is given as over 200,000,000. Next in proportion, claiming about a third of this number, is Mohammedanism, which was intro duced into India in the eleventh century, and spread with great rapidity. Its adherents claim no less than 00,000,000 souls throughout India, their numbers being largest in the north. To gether these religions make up the faith of 90 per cent. of the entire population. The number of Buddhists is given at over 9,000,000; they are nearly all inhabitants of Burma. Statistics show that the number of nature-worshipers, who are roughly classed under the head of animistic, is no less than 8,500,000; while the Sikh religion is professed by over 2,000,000 individuals. Besides these there is a large representation of damns, over 1,000,000, and a scattering number of Parsis, nearly 100,000. The spread of Christianity among the natives has been considerable, for the number is given at about 3,000,000 souls. There are nearly 200,000 Jews. Separate articles will be found devoted to the most important branches of Indian religions. (See BBAHMANISM ; DDHISM ; JA 1 NISM ; MOHAMMEDANISM ; PARSIS ; SIKHS. ) The results of the religious survey of India in the census of 1001 present the following statis tics. The first table is itemized by provinces for British India, with totals for native States and agencies. The second is the summary of the Christian population: second, Brahmanism proper, or the faith incul cated by the priests in the religious books called Brahmanas, and in the philosophical Upanishads (q.v.) ; third, the period of the two great re ligious lefonns, Buddhism and .Jainism (q.v.), both of which were a reaction against decadent Brahmanism; fourth. the newer Hinduism or Brahmanic counter-reform, a wider and more catholic faith which sprang out of the schismatic reform movement; and, finally, the later Hindu sectarian outgrowths and the tendencies of the popular faiths. The Rig-Vcda and Athnrra-Veda represent the literature of the earliest period; the Yajur-Veda is nearer to the second religious phase, or the Brahmanism of the priests; the sacred books of the Buddhistic and Jainistie ref ormations are written respectively in Pali (q.v.) and Prakrit (q.v.) ; again, the great Sanskrit epic poems of the .11allabhurata and the /Mindy aria represent both the purer Brahmanic stage and the later sectarian tendencies; for the latter our chief source of information is that class of mytho logical works known under the name of Pureinas (q.v.) and Tantras (q.v.) ; the material for the
developments after D.C. 1500 must be gathered from various sources. With reference to the time of these eras we can only say in a general way that the Vedic period nins from a very early period down to about B.C. 1000 or a couple of centuries afterwards, and merges into the Brahmanic age. which closes perhaps about B.C. 500. The age of Buddhism was about a.c. 500 to A.D. 500, and the For convenience of treatment the religious development of India may be divided into the following periods: First, the Vedic era, or earliest religious beliefs of the Aryan Hindus; period of epic Hinduism, according to Ilopkins, covers about the same centuries. From A.D. 500 to A.D. 1500 is the era of Brahmanic counter reforms and of sectarianism, while since that time unifying tendencies have been more opera tke than ever before. it is n•c••sary at the oat set, to guard the reader against nttempt connect dates with the earlier of these periods. It has not been uncommon for writers on this subject to assign thousands of years before the Christian Era as the starting-points of various phases of Hindu antiquity; others. more cautious, marked the beginnings of certain dit isions ut Ve dic works with 12no, 11)01), 'dab and GoU years n.c. The truth is. that since Hindu literature it-elf is almost without known dates, uttiag either to the peculiar organization of the Hindu mind, or to the eonvulsions of Indian history•. the present condition of Sanskrit philology doe. not afford the scholar the requisite resources for embarking with any chance of success in such chronological speculations. The question of Hindu chronology will be more particularly considered in the article VEDA. in the meantime, the utmost stretch of assumption which in the present condition of Sanskrit philology it is permitted to make is, that the latest writings of the Vedie class are not more recent than the second century before Christ. A like uncertainty hangs over the period at which the two great epic poems of India were composed, although there i- reason to surmise that the lower limits of that period did not reach beyond the beginning of the Christian Era. The Pnranic period, on the other hand. scholars are generally agreed to regard as corresponding with part of our media•val history, or roughly from A.D. 500 to 1300. although the material in these writings is often much older in its content.