Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/76

66 CHAPTER II. VEN among educated men there is a very inadequate idea of what really is. It is spoken of as though it were one country, with one language and one race of men, just as persons would speak of England or France; whereas India ought to be regarded as a number of nations, speaking twenty-three different languages, and devoted to various faiths and forms of civilization.

During the long period from the time of William the Conqueror till Clive fought the battle of Plassey in 1756, the Hindoos and Mohammedans maintained their diversity, and were as far from any unity or amalgamation when England entered the country, as they were when Mahmoud of Ghizni conquered Delhi. While the nations of Europe tended to unity, and fused their tribes and clans into homogeneous people, who gloried in a common faith and fatherland, these millions of hostile men have retained the sharp outlines of race, religion, language, and nationality as distinctly as ever.

The diversity of race is shown in the Coles, the Jats, the Santhals, the Tartars, the Shanars, the Mairs, the Karens, the Affghans, the Paharees, the Bheels; in religion, we have the Mohammedans, the Hindoos, the Buddhists, the Jains, the Parsees, the Pagans, and the Christians. While in nationality, there are the Bengalese, the Rohillas, the Burmans, the Mahrattas, the Seikhs, the Telugoos, the Karens, and many others.

India is thus, in fact, a congregation of nations, a crowd of civilizations, customs, languages, and types of humanity, thrown together, with no tendency to homogeneity, until an external civilization and a foreign faith shall make unity and common interest possible by educating and Christianizing them.

In regard to the real numbers of these wonderful people we are