Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/770

746 740 INDIA [POPULATION. may perhaps be disputed. Even the so-called Rajputs have probably a considerable admixture of Scythic blood. The Vaisya or third caste of Manu s system is admitted to be almost extinct, while his Sudras are to be found in the pre-existing non-Aryan population. Principal Divisioiis of the Population. Race, itc. Number. Tracts where most numerous. Hindus. 10 131,541 N.-W. Provinces, Oudh, Bengal, Madras. 5,641,138 N.-W. Provinces, Bengul, Oudli, Punjab. Out-castes&quot; 8,712.998 Madras. 17,716,825 Bengal, Central Provinces, Assam. Xative Christians Mahometans. 695,815 219 755 South and West. Punjab. Afghans or Pathtfns 1.841,693 790.&84 Do. Shaikhs 4,700,320 Foreigners. PtCrsfs 69000 Bombav city and Surat. Xup&is 31,000 Bengal. 12,000 Assam. Arabs 8,300 Bombay. 3,500 Do. Armenians 1,250 Bengal. 13,300 Burmah. Malavs 1,500 Do. 7,600 Bombay. Eurasians and Indo- ) Portuguese j 108,000 Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay cities. 121,000 of whom 75,700 are British. Among Mahometans, who number in all 40,227,552, four classes are commonly distinguished. Mughals, or the descendants of the last conquering race, number only 219,755, of whom nearly half are to be found in the Pun jab. Afghans or Pathdns on the other hand, from their proximity to the frontier, are much more strongly repre sented, numbering 1,841,693 in all, chiefly in the Punjab and in the Rohilkhand division of the North- West. Sayyids, who claim to be lineally descended from the prophet, num ber 790,984 ; and Shaikhs, 4,700,320. The remainder are unspecified, but the following tribes or classes among Indian Musatmans are worthy of notice. In Bengal the vast majority of the Mahometans manifestly belong to the same race as the lowest castes of Hindus. They are themselves subdivided into many classes, which in their devotion to hereditary occupations are scarcely to be dis tinguished from Hindu castes. Of late years a reforming spirit has arisen, leading them to abandon the polytheistic customs and festivals which they shared with their Hindu fellow-villagers. Iti the Punjab, besides the Pathan im migrants from across the frontier, Islam has taken a strong hold of the native population. The census re turned upwards of 1,300,000 Jats, 700,000 Rajputs, and 424,000 Gujars among the Musalmans. Here, again, the Mahometans are not strongly distinguished from their Hindu brethren. Baluchis from beyond the frontier num ber 235,000 in the Punjab, and 145,000 in Sind. Bombay possesses three peculiar classes of Musalmans, each of which is specially devoted to maritime trade, the Hfemons, numbering 49,000, chiefly in Sind ; the lloralis, 86,000, mainly in Guzerat ; the Khojahs, nearly 18,000, of whom half live in the island of Bombay. In southern India the majority are known as Dakhani Musalmans, being de scendants of the armies led by the kings and nawabs of the Deccan. But the two peculiar races of the south are the Moplas (613,000) and the Lalbays (312,000), both of which are seated along the coast and follow a seafaring life. They are descended from the Arab traders who settled there in very early times, and have been recruited partly by voluntary adhesions and partly by forcible con versions during the persecutions of Hyder All and Tipu Sultan. The Moplas of Malabar are notorious for repeated outbreaks of bloody fanaticism. , The Mahometans are most numerous, as might be expected, along the valley of the Indus, from Karachi (Kurrachee) to Peshawar. In the Bombay province of Sind they number 78 per cent, of the total population. In the Punjab generally the proportion is 53 per cent., rising to 93 per cent, in the frontier district of Peshawar, in the North-Western Provinces and also in Oudh the proportion of Mahometans nowhere exceeds 23 per cent., though that part of the country was the seat of successive Musalmdn empires for many centuries. In Lower Bengal, on the other hand, the faith of Islam has exercised a more permanent effect upon the population, especially in the valley of the Brahmaputra. The average of Mahometans in the whole province is 33 per cent., rising to 80 per cent, in the deltaic districts of Bogra and Rajshdbi. Here, again, it is found that the Mahometans are not most numerous in the neighbourhood of the great Musalman capitals, Gaur, Rajmahal, Dacca, and Murshidabad, but in the densely populated agricultural tracts, where the semi-aboriginal tribes appear to have willingly embraced Islam in prefer ence to remaining outcasts beyond the exclusive pale of Hinduism. The Sikhs are almost entirely confined to the Punjab, Sikl where they number only 6 50 per cent, of the population. Their stronghold is the country between the rivers Ravi and Sutlej (Satlaj), including the historical cities of Lahore, Amritsar, Ambala (Umballa), and Jalandhar. In no dis trict do they form more than 17 per cent. Of the total number of 897,682 Christians, about Chr 250,000 are believed to be Europeans or to have European blood in their veins. The south of India is the only part where the exertions of the missionaries can be said to be visible in the statistics of population. In the Madras presidency generally, Christians number 533,760, or 1 71 per cent, of the total. Of these, about 416,000 are returned as Roman Catholics, and about 118,000 as Protestants. Nearly one-fifth of all the Christians are found in the single district of Tinnevelli, and they are numerically next strongest in Madura, Tanjore, Trichinopoli, South Kanara, and Malabar. Christianity has been known in southern India for many centuries. A Pehlevi inscription in the ancient church of the St Thomas Mount near Madras city indicates a settlement of Manichseans or Persian Chris tians on the eastern coast, as well as on the west ; and tradi tion speaks of the preaching of the apostle St Thomas in Madras, Tinnevelli, and Malabar. The adherents of the Syrian church in Malabar, Travancore, and Cochin are the most ancient Christian community in the south. After these come the Roman Catholics, who trace their origin to the teaching of St Xavier and the Madura Jesuits. The Protestant churches date only from about the beginning of the present century, but their progress since that time has been considerable. In Bombay there are 126,063 Christians, of whom nearly 83,000, chiefly Indo-Portuguese, are returned as Roman Catholics. In Bengal the Christians number only 90,763, but since the date of the census missionary effort has been very successful among the hill tribes of Chutia Nagpur. In the North-Western Provinces there are 22,196 Christians, in the Punjab 22,154, in the Central Provinces 10,477, in Mysore 25,676, in Coorg 2410, and the remainder are scattered over Assam, Berar, and Ajmir. In British Burmah the Christians are pro portionately more numerous than in any other province, amounting to 52,299, or 1 90 per cent., chiefly converts from the hill tribe of Karens. It should be remembered that the above figures are exclusive of the native states, in which the Christians amount to about 700,000, making a total in round numbers of 1|- millions for all India. An attempt was made at the time of the census to ascertain the Occi professions and occupations of the male adults, but the results tion cannot be accepted as even approximately accurate. The totals.