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to exist as one of the principal religions of the Non-Christian world^[1].

It cannot indeed be right, nor is it even possible for educated Englishmen to remain any longer ignorant of the literary productions, laws, institutions, religious creed, and moral precepts of their Hindu fellow-creatures and fellow-subjects. The East and West are every day being drawn nearer to each other, and British India, in particular, is now brought so close to us by steam, electricity, 'and the Suez Canal, that the condition of the Hindu community—mental, moral, and physical—forces itself peremptorily on our attention. Nor is it any longer justifiable to plead the difficulty of obtaining accurate official information as an excuse for ignorance. Our Government has for a long period addressed itself most energetically to the investigation of every detail capable of throwing light on the past and present history of the Queen's Indian dominions.

A Literary survey of the whole of India has been recently organized for the purpose of ascertaining what Sanskrit MSS., worthy of preservation, exist in public and

↑ See the caution, last line of p. xxxi, and p. 2. Although European nations have changed their religions during the past eighteen centuries, the Hindus have not done so, except very partially. Islam converted a certain number by force of arms in the eighth and following centuries, and Christian truth is at last creeping onwards and winning its way by its own inherent energy in the nineteenth; but the religious creeds, rites, customs, and habits of thought of the Hindus generally have altered little since the days of Manu, five hundred years B. c. Of course they have experienced accretions, but many of the same caste observances and rules of conduct (acara, vyavahara, see p. 217) are still in force; some of the same laws of inheritance (rfaya, p. 270) hold good; even a beggar will sometimes ask for alms in words prescribed by the ancient lawgiver (bhikshdm dehi, Manu II. 49, Kulluka); and to this day, if a pupil absents himself from an Indian college, he sometimes excuses himself by saying that he has a prayas-citta to perform (see p. 278, and Trubner's Report of Professor Stenzler's Speech at the London Oriental Congress).

[1] See the caution, last line of p. xxxi, and p. 2. Although European nations have changed their religions during the past eighteen centuries, the Hindus have not done so, except very partially. Islam converted a certain number by force of arms in the eighth and following centuries, and Christian truth is at last creeping onwards and winning its way by its own inherent energy in the nineteenth; but the religious creeds, rites, customs, and habits of thought of the Hindus generally have altered little since the days of Manu, five hundred years B. c. Of course they have experienced accretions, but many of the same caste observances and rules of conduct (acara, vyavahara, see p. 217) are still in force; some of the same laws of inheritance (rfaya, p. 270) hold good; even a beggar will sometimes ask for alms in words prescribed by the ancient lawgiver (bhikshdm dehi, Manu II. 49, Kulluka); and to this day, if a pupil absents himself from an Indian college, he sometimes excuses himself by saying that he has a prayas-citta to perform (see p. 278, and Trubner's Report of Professor Stenzler's Speech at the London Oriental Congress).

[1]