| There are many cults prevalent in India, though not | | | | forces. |
| recognized as sects, in which the worship of some | | | | Many features of Hinduism, its steady though slow |
| aboriginal deity is accepted in all its crudeness without | | | | conquest of India, its extraordinary vitality and tenacity |
| much admixture of philosophy, the only change being | | | | in resisting the attacks of Mohammedanism, and its |
| that the deity is described as a form, incarnation or | | | | small power of expansion beyond the seas are |
| servant of some well-known god and that Brahmans | | | | explained by the fact that it is a mode of life as much |
| are connected with this worship. This habit of | | | | as a faith. To be a Hindu it is not sufficient to hold the |
| absorbing aboriginal superstitions materially lowers the | | | | doctrine of the Upanishads or any other scriptures: it is |
| average level of creed and ritual. An educated | | | | necessary to be a member of a Hindu caste and |
| Brahman would laugh at the idea that village | | | | observe its regulations. It is not quite correct to say |
| superstitions can be taken seriously as religion but he | | | | that one must be born a Hindu, since Hinduism has |
| does not condemn them and, as superstitions, he does | | | | grown by gradually hinduizing the wilder tribes of India |
| not disbelieve in them. | | | | and the process still continues. |
| It is chiefly owing to this habit that Hinduism has spread | | | | But a convert cannot enter the fold by any simple |
| all over India and its treatment of men and gods is | | | | ceremony like baptism. The community to which he |
| curiously parallel. Princes like the Manipuris of Assam | | | | belongs must adopt Hindu usages and then it will be |
| came under Hindu influence and were finally | | | | recognized as a caste, at first of very low standing but |
| recognized as Kshattiyas with an imaginary pedigree, | | | | in a few generations it may rise in the general esteem. |
| and on the same principle their deities are recognized | | | | A Hindu is bound to his religion by almost the same ties |
| as forms of Siva or Durga. And Siva and Durga | | | | that bind him to his family. Hence the strength of |
| themselves were built up in past ages out of aboriginal | | | | Hinduism in India. But such ties are hard to knit and |
| beliefs, though the cement holding their figures together | | | | Hinduism has no chance of spreading abroad unless |
| is Indian thought and philosophy, which are able to see | | | | there is a large colony of Hindus surrounded by an |
| in grotesque rustic godlings an expression of cosmic | | | | appreciative and imitative population. |