Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/294

 270 Reviews.

our forefathers that we can hardly understand how large provinces of Nature are still held by peoples comparatively civilised to be the spheres of arbitrary and incessant action by supernatural powers which are constantly multiplying. It needs books like the one before us to present and systematise the phenomena, to recall to our minds how mixed the population of India is — mixed in civilisation as well as in race — and to insist on the extraordinary fact that the modern activity and growth of Hinduism are largely due to the English conquest, and to the establishment of the pax Britannica with its modern facilities for communication.

There cannot be two opinions on the vast importance of the study of Hindu religion. In most other parts of the world acces- sible to the scientific student we find the native beliefs under- mined by contact with Europeans. In India, on the other hand, what is going on is a recrudescence of Hinduism and the incor- poration with it of a vast number of aboriginal cults and super- stitions not previously taken up. These must rapidly carry further the process of transformation of the old Vedic faith, which has been in course for centuries. Meanwhile the religious beUefs, whether of the aboriginal tribes and lower castes or of the Brahmans themselves, hardly appear to be suffering any diminu- tion of intensity. They are predominant over the lives and customs of the people. The position of our officials offers unusual facilities for observing the religion of the natives ; the problems of government demand close attention to all that concerns that religion ; and its vitaUty and its changes in the midst of its con- servatism render it peculiarly interesting alike for its own sake and for purposes of comparison with similar processes elsewhere.

Mr. Crooke, when in India, utiUsed his opportunities. A patient observer and inquirer, he was impressed with the vast importance of the subject, and endeavoured to interest his fellow-officials and others in the folklore of the country. For that purpose he took up the work, dropped by Captain (now Major) Temple, of editing the Fa?tjab (afterwards the Ltdian) Notes and Queries, called under Mr. Crooke's management North Indian Notes and Queries, and forming a mine of information on the peoples of India. Much of this information he has embodied in the work before us, together with much derived from other sources. Under all the difficulties of absence from this country, of the climate and of his official duties, he contrived to keep abreast of scientific thought