(RELIGIOUS MENDICANTS) AT BENARES

facing 82 A YOGI ON A BED OF SPIKES facing 84 An example of present-day austerities THE BIRTH OF BRAHMA: SPRINGING FROM A LOTUS ISSUING FROM VISHNU facing 100 From an original Indian painting HANUMAN facing 106 From a bronze in the Victoria and Albert Museum THE HINDU TRINITY AT ELEPHANTA facing 120 VISHNU UPHOLDING THE UNIVERSE facing 124 From a sculpture at Mâmallapuram KRISHNA AND THE GOPIS (HERDSMAIDS) facing 128 From a modern sculpture BUDDHA EXPOUNDING THE LAW facing 130 THE BOAR INCARNATION OF VISHNU RAISING THE EARTH FROM THE DEEP facing 136 From a rock sculpture at Udayagiri INTERIOR OF A ROCK-HEWN BUDDHIST TEMPLE (AJANTA) facing 140 LAKSHMI ARISING FROM THE SEA OF MILK facing 144 From a sculpture at Mâmallapuram SHIVA DANCING ON TRIPURA facing 148 From a bronze in the Madras Museum GANESA facing 150 From a sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum KARTIKEYA, THE WAR GOD facing 152 From a painting by Surendra Nalh Gangoly PARVATI, WIFE OF SHIVA facing 154 From a South Indian temple A VAISHNAVAITE NUN READING THE RAMAYANA facing 374 THE CORONATION OF RAMA AND SITA facing 424

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INTRODUCTION

The triangular sub-continent of India is cut off from the rest of Asia by the vast barriers of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush, the Suleiman mountains, and the Indian Ocean. Its population comprises about two hundred and ninety-five millions, and is of greatest density on the fertile northern plain, which is watered by three river systems, the Indus and its tributaries on the west, and the Ganges and Brahmaputra with their tributaries which pour into the Bay of Bengal. South of the Vindhya mountain ranges is the plateau of the Deccan. The climate varies from temperate on the Himalayan slopes to tropical in southern India, and over the entire country there are two pronounced annual seasons, the dry and the rainy.

Our interest abides in this volume chiefly with the northern plain and the people who are familiar in varying degrees with the sacred and heroic literature passed under review; that is, with the scenes of the early Indian civilization known as Aryan and those numerous inheritors of Aryan traditions, the Hindus, who exceed two hundred and seven millions of the population of India. Modern Hinduism embraces a number of cults which are connected with the early religious doctrines of the Aryanized or Brahmanized India of the past; it recognizes, among other things, the ancient caste system which includes distinct racial types varying from what is known as the Aryan to the pre-Dravidian stocks. Other religious organizations may be referred to in passing. Buddhists are chiefly confined to Burma, Sikhs number two millions, the Mohammedans nearly sixty-three millions, while the Parsees number roughly ninety-five thousand; less than three million natives and half-castes are Christians.

Like Egypt, India is a land of ancient memories, but its history, or rather pre-history, does not begin until about a thousand years after the erection was completed of the great pyramids at Gizeh. Between 2000 B.C. and 1200 B.C. tribes of pastoral and patriarchal peoples of Aryan speech were pouring over the north-western frontier and settling in the Punjab. There are no written or inscribed records, or even native traditions, of this historic migration, but we are able to follow vaguely, from the references found in religious compositions, the gradual conquest of northern India, which covered a period of several centuries. To what extent this invasion was racial, rather