Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/449

Rh, and Cochin are unanimous in rejecting these tests as an authoritative Shibboleth when applied to a South Indian population. Each has endeavoured to formulate his own test. As remarked in a previous article, the Cochin Superintendent decided that the crucial point was the recognition of caste as a socio-religious institution. The Travancore Superintendent seems to think that belief in Karma is the determining factor; and Mr. Thyāgaraja Aiyar lays down the following definition: "A Hindu is a Theist believing in the religious evolution which will some day, but surely, through worship of God in his various forms, (according to the worshipper's ideal) and through good works in his present life, or series of lives, land him in the Godhead, compared with whom nothing is real in this world."" [sic] In a paper read before this Society on Nov. 15, 1911, Mr. Crooke stated that,—"On the whole, it may be said that reverence for the cow and passionate resistance to its slaughter are the most powerful links which bind together the chaotic complex of beliefs which we designate by the name of Hinduism" (Folk-Lore, vol. xxiii., p. 279). The Manipuris certainly are Hindus according to the last test. I think that the educated among them would pass as Hindus by the tests of Travancore and Mr. Thyāgaraja Aiyar. As regards belief in caste, too, the Manipuri would pass as a Hindu, if you accept his own definition of caste.

In order to explain this, and to facilitate the following of the pre-Hindu beliefs which I am about to describe, I must briefly touch on the composition of the Manipuri population. Various clans fought for the supremacy of the valley; all these were closely allied, although constantly at war. Of these clans that called Meithei came out the conqueror, and that name is now applied to all the clans. But, besides the clans known now collectively as Meithei, there were other clans in the valley whom the Meithei conquered but did not admit into the Meithei confederacy. These are now known collectively as Loi, and, though all