Mackenzie, Donald Alexander: Indian myth and legend: with illustrations by Warwick Goble and numerous monochrome plates (London, 1913)

INTRODUCTION

he triangular sub-continent of India is cut off from
rest of Asia by the vast barriers of the Himalayas,
the Hindu Kush, the Suleiman mountains, and the Indian
Ocean. Its population comprises about two hundred and
ninety-five millions, and is of greatest density on the fertile
northern plain, which is watered by three river systems,
the Indus and its tributaries on the west, and the Ganges
and Brahmaputra with their tributaries which pour into the
Bay of Bengal. South of the Vindhya mountain ranges is
the plateau of the Deccan. The climate varies from tem-
perate on the Himalayan slopes to tropical in southern
India, and over the entire country there are two pro-
nounced annual seasons, the dry and the rainy.

I Our interest abides in this volume chiefly with the
northern plain and the people who are familiar in varying
degrees with the sacred and heroic literature passed under
review; that is, with the scenes of the early Indian civil-
ization known as Aryan and those numerous inheritors
of Aryan traditions, the Hindus, who exceed two hundred
and seven millions of the population of India. Modern
Hinduism embraces a number of cults which are connected
with the early religious doctrines of the Aryanized or
Brahmanized India of the past; it recognizes, among
other things, the ancient caste system which includes dis-
tinct racial types varying from what is known as the

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