INTRODUCTION.

45

meet continually, especially those connected with the history of the
architecture of the country. Except on some such hypothesis as that
just shadowed forth, I do not know how we are to account for the
presence of certain local forms of buildings we find in the north, or
to explain the persistence with which they were adhered to.

When from these purely ethnographic speculations we turn to ask
how far religion and race coincide, we are left with still less infor-
mation of a reliable character. As a rule, the Dravidians are Saiva,
and Saiva in the exact proportion of the purity of their blood. In
other words, in the extreme south of India they are immensely in the
majority. In Tanjore, 7 to 1 of the followers of Vishnu ; in Madura,
5 to 1 ; in Trichinopoly, 4 to 1 ; and Salem, and generally in the
south, 2 to 1 ;1 but as we proceed northward they become equal, and
in some of the northern districts of the Madras Presidency the pro-
portions are reversed.

In Bengal, and wherever Buddhism once prevailed, the Vaishnava
sects are, as might be expected, the most numerous. Indeed if it
were not that so much of the present Hindu religion is an importa-
tion into the south, and was taught to the Dravidians by Brahmans
from the north, it would be difficult to understand how the Vaishnava
religion ever took root there, where Buddhism itself only existeil to a
slight extent, and where it, too, was an importation. If, however,
it is correct to assume that Saivism had its origin to the northward
of the Himalayas, among the Tartar tribes of these regions, there is
no difficulty in understanding its presence in Bengal to the extent
to which it is found to prevail there. But, on the other hand,
nothing can be more natural than that an aboriginal Naga people,
who worshipped trees and serpents, should become Buddhists, as
Buddhism was originally understood, and, being Buddhists, should
slide downwards into the corruptions of the present Vaishnava form
of faith, which is avowedly that most fashionable and most prevalent
in the north of India.

One of the most startling facts brought out by the last census, is
the discover}' that nearly one-third of the population of Eastern
Bengal are Mahomedan—20,500,000, out of 66,000,000—while in the
north-west provinces the Mahomedans are less than ] -6th—4,000,000
among 25,000,000; and in Oude little more than 1-lOth. It thus
looks more like a matter of feeling than of race; it seems that as
the inhabitants of Bengal were Buddhists, and clung to that faith
long after it had been abolished in other parts of India, they came
in contact with the Moslem religion before they had adopted the
modem form of Vishnuism, and naturally preferred a faith which
acknowledged no caste, and freed them from the exactions and

1 ■ Madna Report,' i>. 90.