THE TERMS WE EMPLOY
"Precise ideas and precisely defined words are the wealth and
the currency of the mind."
--Introduction to _The Pilgrim's Progress,_ Macmillan's
Edition.
[Sidenote: No _Indian_ race or religion.]
Experience teaches the necessity of explaining to Western readers
certain terms which even long residence in India often fails to make
clear to Anglo-Indians. Let it be remembered then that the terms _India,
Indian_, have only a geographical reference: they do not signify any
particular race or religion. India is the great triangular continent
bounded on the south-west and south-east by the sea, and shut in on the
north by the Himalayan Mountains. Self-contained though it be, and
easily thought of as a geographical unit, we must not think of India as
a racial, linguistic, or religious unit. We may much more correctly
speak of _the_ European race, language, or religion, than of _the_
Indian.
[Sidenote: A Hindu religion.]
The term _Hindu_ refers to one of the Indian religions, the religion of
the great majority no doubt. It is not now a national or geographical
term. Practically every Hindu is an Indian, and almost necessarily must
be so, but every Indian is not a Hindu. There are Indian Mahomedans,
sixty-two million of them; Indian Buddhists, a few--the great majority
of the Buddhists in the "Indian Empire" being in Burmah, not in India
proper; there are Indian Christians, about three million in number; and
there are Indian Parsees. A Hindu is the man who professes Hinduism.[31]
[Sidenote: Where is Hindustan?]
_Hindustan_, or the land of the Hindus, is a term that never had any
geographical definiteness. In the mouths of Indians it meant the central
portion of the plain of North India; in English writers of half a
century ago it was often used when all India was meant. In exact writing
of the present time, the term is practically obsolete.
[Sidenote: Who speak Hindustani?]
Unfortunately for clearness, the term _Hindustani_ not only survives,
but survives in a variety of significations. The word is an adjective,
_pertaining to Hindustan_, and in English it has become the name either
of the people of Hindustan or of their language. It is in the latter
sense that the name is particularly confusing. The way out of the
difficulty lies in first associating _Hindustani_ clearly with the
central region of Hindustan, the country to the north-east of Agra and
Delhi. These were the old imperial capitals, be it remembered. Then from
that centre, the Hindustani language spread--a central, imperial,
Persianised language not necessarily superseding the other
vernaculars--wherever the authority of the empire went. Thus throughout
India, Hindustani became a _lingua franca_, the imperial language. In
the Moghul Empire of Northern India it was exactly what "King's English"
was in the Anglo-Norman kingdom in England in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. French was the language of the Anglo-Norman court
of London, as Persian of the court of Delhi or Agra; the Frenchified
King's English was the court form of the vernacular in England, as the
Persianised Hindustani in North India. It was this _lingua franca_ that
Europeans in India set themselves to acquire.
[Sidenote: Urdu literature]
Continuing the English parallel--the Hindustani of Delhi, the capital,
Persianised as the English of London was Frenchified, became the
recognised literary medium for North India. The special name _Urdu_,
however, has now superseded the term _Hindustani_, when we think of the
language as a literary medium. _Urdu_ is the name for literary
Hindustani; in the Calcutta University Calendar, for example, the name
_Hindustani_ never occurs.
[Sidenote: Hindi language and literature]
About the beginning of the nineteenth century another dialect of
Hindustani, called _Hindi_, also gained a literary standing. It contains
much less of Persian than Urdu does, leaning rather to Sanscrit; it is
written in the deva-nagari or Sanscrit character; is associated with
Hindus and with the eastern half of Hindustan; whereas Urdu is written
in the Persian character, and is associated with Mahomedans and the
western half of Hindustan.[32]
[Sidenote: The Brahmans]
Another series of terms are likewise a puzzle to the uninitiated. To
Westerns, the _brahmans_[33] are best known as the priests of the
Hindus; more correctly, however, the name _brahman_ signifies not the
performer of priestly duties, but the caste that possesses a monopoly of
the performance. The brahman caste is the Hindu _Tribe of Levi_. Every
accepted Hindu priest is a brahman, although it is far from being the
case that every brahman is a priest. As a matter of fact, at the Census
of 1901 it was found that the great majority of brahmans have turned
aside from their traditional calling. In Bengal proper, only about 16
per cent. of the brahmans were following priestly pursuits; in the
Madras Presidency, 11.4 per cent.; and in the Bombay Presidency, 22 per
cent.
[Sidenote: Brahmanism.]
_Brahmanism_ is being employed by a number of recent writers in place of
the older _Hinduism_. Sir Alfred Lyall uses _Brahmanism_ in that sense;
likewise Professor Menzies in his recent book, _Brahmanism and
Buddhism_. Sir Alfred Lyall's employment of the term _Brahmanism_ rather
than _Hinduism_, is in keeping with his description of Hinduism, which
he defines as the congeries of diverse local beliefs and practices that
are held together by the employment of brahmans as priests. The
description is a true one; the term Brahmanism represents what is common
to the Hindu castes and sects; it is their greatest common measure, as
it were. But yet the fact remains that _Hindus_ speak of themselves as
such, not as _Brahmanists_, and it is hopeless to try to supersede a
current name. Sir M. Monier Williams employs the term _Brahmanism_ in a
more limited and more legitimate sense. Dividing the history of the
Hindu religion into three periods, he calls them the stages of Vedism,
Brahmanism, and Hinduism respectively. The first is the period of the
Vedas, or earliest sacred books; the second, of the Brahman philosophy,
fundamentally pantheistic; the third is the period of "a confused tangle
of divine personalities and incarnations." Sir M. Monier Williams'
standard work on the religion of the Hindus is "_Brahmanism and
Hinduism."_ "Hinduism," he tells us, "is Brahmanism modified by the
creeds and superstitions of Buddhists and non-Aryans of all kinds."
[Sidenote: Brahm[=a], Brahma.]
[Sidenote: Br[=a]hmas]
We are not done with this confusing set of terms. _Brahm[=a]_ is the
first person of the Hindu divine triad--the Creator--who along with the
other two persons of the triad, has proceeded from a divine essence,
_Brahma_ or _Brahm_. Brahma is Godhead or Deity: Brahm[=a], is _a_
Deity, a divine _person_ who has emanated from the Godhead, Brahma.
_Br[=a]hmas_ or theists, believers in Brahma, are a religious body that
originated in Bengal in the nineteenth century. Repudiating caste,
idolatry, and transmigration, they are necessarily cut off from
Hinduism. The body is called the Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j, that is, the
Theistic Association. Enough for the present; in their respective places
these distinctions can be more fully gone into.