Page:An Essay On Hinduism.pdf/64

 ears being educated to hear such pretensions, they do not seem so ludicrous.

The spread of Hinduism has taken a different turn. A uniformity has been produced among the people of India who are called Hindus, but that uniformity is not a result of a conscious attempt to convert some portion of the people by the rest. When two tribes meet, each of the tribe borrows something from the other, and in course of time either the tribes fuse, or if they do not fuse at least a considerable uniformity is produced. When a number of tribes meet on the same spot, there is naturally a tendency towards uniformity of their customs and manners. The tribe that is dominant is imitated by the rest. The ideas of the different peoples tend to become uniform in the course of time; and if there be any class of people who are more intelligent and more cultured than the rest they are looked up to and are consulted by those who are less intelligent and less learned. If the families, clans or tribes which come together have certain distinctive gods of their own, some of the gods are forgotten and some others remain. The other gods when they are brought together either become special deities, subordinate to the supreme single deity, produced by the conception of the monotheistic philosophers in the tribes; or they may even be regarded by them as different manifestations of the same deity.

Thus by mere contact, by living together for a considerable period, are acquired a common stock of ideas, a common system of manners, a common tradition, a common theology, and a priestly caste; and when the tribes become more closely associated, the documents and the traditions of one tribe are regarded as a common heritage of the whole population. This has been essentially the process by which