Statistics.
It would add very much to the clearness of what follows if it were possible to compile any statistical tables which would represent with anything like precision the mode in which the people of India are distributed, either as regards their religious beliefs or their ethnographical relations. The late census of 1871-72 has afforded a mass of new material for this purpose, but the information is distributed through five folio volumes, in such a manner as to make it extremely difficult to abstract what is wanted so as to render it intelligible to the general reader. Even, however, if this were done, the result would hardly, for several reasons, be satisfactory. In the first place, the census is a first attempt, and the difficulty of collecting and arranging such a mass of new materials was a task of the extremest difficulty. The fault of any shortcomings, however, lay more with the enumerated than with the enumerators. Few natives know anything of ethnography, or can give a distinct answer with regard to their race or descent; and even with regard to religion their notions are equally hazy. Take for instance the table, page 93 of the Bombay Report. The compilers there divide the Hindus of that Presidency into three classes:—
| 3,465,349 | Saivas. |
| 1,419,233 | Vaishnavas. |
| 8,029,989 | Mixed. |
| 12,914,571 |
The mixed class they proceed to define as “all who simply worship some god or goddess, without knowing anything of theology”—a description that probably applies with equal truth to two-thirds of the Hindu population of the other presidencies. The upper and educated classes do know now what sect they belong to, and the sects are so distinctly marked as to admit of no doubt; but even that was not so clear in former days.
The great defect, however, of the census is, that it does not include the population of the Native States, estimated at 46,245,000, or one-fifth of the whole population of India; and, though it may be fair to assume that the proportions of races and their beliefs are the same as those of the adjacent states under British rule, this is only an assumption, and as such must vitiate any attempt at precision in statements regarding the whole of India.
Notwithstanding these difficulties or defects, it may be useful to state here that the population of the whole of India—exclusive, of course, of British Burmah—was ascertained by the late census to amount to 235,000,000 of souls. Of these, about 7-10ths—or, more nearly, 15-20ths—or 175,000,000, belonged to the various branches of the Hindu religion; more than 1-5th or 4-20ths or 50,000,000, professed the Mahomedan faith; and the remaining 1-20th was made up principally of the uncivilised hill tribes, and various minor sects which cannot correctly be classified with the followers of Siva and Vishnu. In this last group of 11,000,000 are the Jains and the Christians, who, though so influential from their wealth or intellect, form numerically but a very small fraction of the entire population.
The tables of the census, unfortunately, afford us very little information that is satisfactory with regard to the distribution of races among the people. From the new edition of Caldwell’s ‘Dravidian Grammar,’ we learn that upwards of 45,000,000 are Dravidian or speak Tamil, or languages allied to that dialect.[42] This may be somewhat of an over-estimate, but, taking it as it stands, it accounts for only 1-5th of the population; and what are we to say regarding the other 4-5ths, or 190,000,000 of souls? Four or five millions may be put on one side as Koles, Bhîls, Sontals, Nagas, &c.—hill tribes of various classes, whose affinities are not yet by any means settled, but whose ethnic relations are of very minor importance compared with those of the 185,000,000 remaining.
As the census leaves us very much in the dark on this subject, supposing we assume that one-half, or 90,000,000 more or less, of the inhabitants of northern India are the descendants of the original inhabitants of the country—Dasyus, Nishadhas, or whatever we may call them. Let us further divide the remaining 90,000,000 into three parts, and assume that one-third are lineal descendants of the Aryans who entered India before the time of Buddha; one-third the descendants of Yavanas, Sakas, Hunas, and other Scythian tribes who crossed the Indus between the Christian Era and the time of the Mahomedan invasion; and that the remainder are the Moslem races, or their descendants, who have entered India during the last 800 years. Such a scheme may nearly represent the facts of the case; but it seems almost certainly to exaggerate the importance of the foreign immigrant element. Taking, for instance, the last, about which we know most, it seems hardly probable that since the time of Mahmood of Guzni any such number of tribes professing the Mahomedan religion could have entered India so as to be able to procreate a population of 30,000,000 of souls, even supposing they had brought their women with them—which they certainly did not, except in the most exceptional cases. Two or three millions of warriors may have crossed the Indus in that time and settled in India, and, marrying the females of the country, may have had a numerous progeny; but thirty millions is a vast population by direct descent, especially as we know how many of the Moslems of India were recruited from slaves purchased and brought up in the faith of their masters. In Bengal especially, where they are most numerous, they are Bengalis pure and simple, many, perhaps most, of whom have adopted that faith quite recently from motives it is not difficult to understand or explain. Though there may consequently be 50,000,000 of Mussulmans in India at the present day, we may feel quite certain that not one-half of this number are immigrants or the descendants of emigrants who entered India during the last eight centuries.
The same is probably true of the Turanian races, who entered India in the first ten centuries after our era. It is most improbable that they were sufficiently numerous to be the progenitors of thirty millions of people, and, if they were so, the mothers, in nine cases out of ten, were most probably natives of India.
Of the Aryans we know less; but, if so great a number as thirty millions can trace anything like a direct descent from them at the present day, the amount of pure Aryan blood in their veins must be infinitesimally small. But, though their blood may be diluted, the influence of their intellect remains so powerfully impressed on every institution of the country that, had they perished altogether, their previous presence is still an element of the utmost importance in the ethnic relations of the land.