The general state of the public health in every country depends on the measure of adjustment of the relations of the individual and the race to the environment: the more complete and continuous the adjustment, the greater the longevity. The tendency of European civilization is to give man more and more complete control of his surroundings, whereas in India these are actually and relatively stronger, more capricious and unreliable, than in the West, while the individual is less resistant and adaptable. These influences have moulded the moral and physical character of the people and their civilization; and a brief reference to some of the salient features of the situation will tend to elucidate the vital statistics, as well as to explain some of the peculiar difficulties of the problems they disclose.

As regards the individual, the main general results of the marriage customs are those to be expected from the absence of free selection and from endogamous restriction: viz. increase in the power of transmitting characteristics (‘prepotency’), a deterioration of physique ¹, lessened resistance to disease, and, possibly, some relative impairment of fertility. The almost universal custom of marriage at puberty implies that practically all the immature adolescents of every generation have an equal opportunity of propagating their kind; and there is none of the salutary elimination effected in the West by the celibacy of large classes. The general average product must be lower; and apart from the greater tendency to disease, inherited and acquired, the duration of life is affected in another way. For there is probably a direct relation between early marriage and the duration of the reproductive functions, and the premature strain on the latter tends to their earlier cessation. The climacteric is advanced, with all the corresponding results of earlier degeneration, and we thus obtain a more rapid vital cycle involving premature senility. As regards the individual, as will be seen later on, an enormous sacrifice is also incurred in the loss of maternal and infant life. On the other hand, the rapid succession of the generations, probably five or more in a century, is favourable to the process of adjustment to an environment that is subject to constant changes: we may see the results in the rapid recuperation of the people after famine and epidemics, and possibly in the relative immunity they possess to some of the chief causes of mortality.

With respect to nutrition, it cannot be doubted that the quality and nature of the food of the majority leaves much to be desired, and on this the measure of vital resistance largely depends, while the quantity available appears to influence the birth-rate in a marked degree. These combined effects are strongly emphasized in times of scarcity and famine, with consequent radical modification in the number, the vitality, and the age constitution of the population. Under ordinary conditions, the essential protein (nitrogenous) element available is largely diminished by waste in all vegetable food, and primitive methods of cooking and digestive debility add to the loss. These disabilities are greatly enhanced in sickness, when bulky, dry, and ill-cooked food cannot be taken, and this is a factor in the heavy mortality and the economic loss from prostration. Finally, poverty, of which sickness and mortality are perhaps the chief causes, has a direct effect on the resources in food, clothing, and housing, and on the standard of comfort, and so of ‘resistance,’ while it affects detrimentally the power to achieve measures of amelioration.

Coming now to the general environment, its special characteristics may be briefly indicated under three heads: religious and moral, social, and physical. The whole tone of religious thought, with its philosophy of fatalism, is against the individualistic self-assertion necessary to success in the struggle for existence; it is opposed to co-operation for civic ideals; and it promotes indifference to life. Evidence of this is seen in the now suppressed practices of the sacrifice of widows (sati) and female infanticide, and in the treatment of women in child-bed. Disastrous effects on a larger scale frequently follow on the congregation of vast numbers at places of pilgrimage, where the rites involve overcrowding, exposure, and the consumption of unwholesome, if sacred, food and water. The duties of daily life, limited in their application to the individual and the family, are ordered and performed as religious rites which the British Government is pledged to respect as long as they do not outrage the moral law; and herein lies one difficulty in securing the observance of the sanitary ordinances which have occupied so large a place in the Statute Book of recent years. The caste constitution of society, if justified in the circumstances of its origin and in many of its results, imposes a rigid bar to free competition and to the development of civilization. Again, many of the conditions of social life are largely the result of the anarchy and insecurity of life and property that prevailed anterior to British rule. This, with the climate and the water-supply, has determined the insanitary structure of the dwellings and their arrangement in aggregates, while the seclusion of women of the better classes has also had evil effects on the race of the natural leaders of the people. There has been little, if any, adjustment to the new conditions which are the outcome of the pax Britannica, while the most important of these conditions, operating on the cumulative effects of religion and custom, has resulted in an enormous increase of population. This has led to extraordinary density over great areas, and to overcrowding, to which the development of industrial enterprise has greatly contributed in many large centres, while it must be remembered that an overwhelming proportion of the sickness and mortality is caused by specific communicable diseases.

Of the predominant features of the physical environment much might be said, but the following remarks must be confined to brief suggestions of the influence of rainfall and range of temperature. Nine-tenths of the vast population live from the land; and the two indispensable conditions of existence, the supply of food and water, depend almost entirely, in the greater part of India, upon the character of the summer monsoon, i.e. upon the rainfall that occurs during some three or four months, which is then stored in, and on, the soil for consumption during the rest of the year. Speaking generally, the country is subject annually to a short period of deluge and a longer one of dryness, but there are the greatest contrasts in the relative intensity of the phenomena in different areas under normal conditions. These, moreover, give place, from time to time, to periods of excess or failure of the rains, with consequent accentuation of the phenomena in proportion to their duration and the area affected. Now, the sources of water-supply are of three kinds, surface ’tanks’ (ponds), shallow wells, and rivers ¹, while everywhere, save in a few of the largest towns, all sewage and liquid and solid waste are committed to the soil for disposal, either by deposit on the surface or by burial, and this generally in close proximity to the inhabited site. The effect of heavy and continuous rain, which is far less penetrating in proportion to its quantity than outside the tropics, is to wash the accumulated soil impurities into the water-sources and to leave stagnant collections of water where drainage is defective. The ground-water, replenished by percolation often too rapid for effective filtration, rises quickly in the wells, until in a few weeks, over large areas, it is within a few feet of the surface which it frequently reaches by the end of the monsoon. In this way the majority of the wells of the inhabited sites are rendered saline and non-potable by infiltration of sewage salts. Meanwhile, all the conditions of life have been transformed: water is abundant, but certainly at first impure; coarse green vegetables largely replace the simple grain diet; there are frequent sudden alterations in temperature, against which the clothing resources are inadequate, and the people are driven to the shelter of their dwellings; the cultivation of rice, the staple food-crop of large areas, necessitates interference with the natural drainage; and lastly, there is a great development of insect and micro-organic life. Here we have all the conditions that lead to bowel complaints and fevers; and the mortality curve, which is generally lowest in June, rises, with the monsoon period, to its highest point in the two succeeding months. Thereafter, through the next six months, the course of events is reversed: the water-supplies and surface collections are gradually depleted; and as the hot season advances many are completely exhausted, most of those that persist being reduced to the condition of muddy puddles in the case of wells and tanks, and to a stagnant chain of pools in the case of all but the largest rivers. If the monsoon should fail, or cease early, the conditions are aggravated: the supply of the prime necessity of existence is cut off at innumerable sources, causing an overwhelming call on those that remain, which are subject to greatly enhanced risks of pollution. It is too frequently the custom to use the same supply, indiscriminately, for the various purposes of drinking, bathing, washing clothes, and watering cattle; and it will be understood that in these circumstances an outbreak of cholera is frequently added to failure of the food supply. It will be seen later how, by its influence on the mortality and the food-supply, the rainfall also largely affects the birth-rate.

As regards the range of temperature, which varies greatly in different areas at different seasons, but which is generally far greater than in Europe, it is easy to trace its influence on the important vital condition of the supply of pure air in dwellings. It largely determines the materials and structure of these; hence the striking contrast between the reed and thatch hut of the typical Bengal hamlet and the impervious mud and brick structures of the dry inland tracts where the range is highest and where protection from extremes of heat and cold is necessitated. Here, also, dwellings were aggregated under the necessity for defence, and consequently present all the features of camps; there were no arrangements for site-ventilation, or conservancy; and even now the cattle are driven at night into close courtyards, and often into dwellings, which are devoid of appliances for the admission of light and air. The joint-family system involves overcrowding, especially in sleeping rooms, which is most marked in towns; and where the range of temperature is greatest, the effects of the scanty resources in clothing are also most manifest. There is abundant evidence to show that these conditions, varying in degree over large areas, determine the incidence of diseases of the ‘zymotic’ class, and especially of typhus and the contagious fevers; also of pneumonia, phthisis, and other fatal lung disorders, which are favoured by aggregation in foul air, and which are the causes of a very large proportion of the sickness and mortality.

To sum up, we have a vast and heterogeneous population, in a primitive and rigid stage of civilization which involves certain physical and moral disabilities, dependent in general on the land not only for daily bread, but for all material resources. The marked feature of the general situation is man’s comparative subordination to the environment, against which the struggle is maintained, with varying issue, rather than with his fellow men. The character of the rainfall determines the quantity and quality of the food and water-supplies, and through these, in a large measure, the health of the community, as evidenced by the high and fluctuating birth and death-rates and by the frequent reversal of their normal relations; and this occurs not only in specially unfavourable years, but in certain months of the year under more ordinary circumstances.

In approaching the discussion of the vital statistics of the general population, it is necessary to explain that we are still far from a complete and accurate record of the births and deaths, and of the causes of death; that there is no record of marriages, and but a very inadequate one of sickness. Registration was first instituted in British India generally about thirty years ago, much later in certain areas, and to-day (1905) some of the less accessible hill tracts and most of the Native States are still outside its scope. The difficulties encountered have been great, and many remain. The people, doubtful of the object, shrink from publicity in domestic affairs. The agents are, for the most part, illiterate village watchmen, or town police, who are required to report to the police station at regular but varying intervals the simple fact of birth or death and the supposed cause in the latter event. As to the record of actual occurrences, the error of defect varies considerably in different areas: in some it is almost negligible, in others it may amount to nearly one-third of the total, but there is a general progressive improvement everywhere. The statement of the cause of death leaves much to be desired: the vast majority die without qualified medical attendance, and we have to rely on the crude impressions of the people, who attribute most fatal illnesses marked by a rise of temperature to ‘fever,’ and who, during epidemics, frequently conceal either the fact or the true cause, in order to escape sanitary measures. At such times, and also during famine, special sources of fallacy arise from the migration of large numbers, so that, even if the facts are obtained by special effort, the local ratios are vitiated. Everywhere efforts are made to check the records by local inquiries, and, in many towns, by supervision of the appointed places for burial or burning.

A general Census was first taken between 1867 and 1872, and was repeated in 1881, 1891, and 1901. The value of these enumerations has been inestimable, though the return of ages is by no means accurate and there has possibly been some concealment of females. The figures have enabled us to obtain an approximate estimate of the true birth and death-rates, and of the mortality by age and sex, and thus have afforded data for the construction of a Life Table. The great fluctuations in the birth and death-rates, and the frequent reversal of their normal relations, are marked in the irregular progress of the population, and for this reason the census figures soon become inaccurate for ratio calculations in inter-censal periods. With these limitations, it will be seen that the material for a closely reasoned analysis is often lacking. But the recorded facts are of great value in the study of the conditions of each area; of far less use, though still suggestive, for inter-Provincial comparisons. Any attempt to trace the effect of sanitary measures on the health of the people is at present beset by obvious fallacies, for as registration improves the rates tend to rise in any case; but there is abundant evidence forthcoming on this question in the vital statistics of the troops and prisoners which are discussed later on in this chapter.

The following statement gives a general view of the birth-rates recorded in different Provinces during the two decades ending with 1890 and 1900, with other particulars for comparison:—

• The probable true normal rates (column 6) are taken from the Report of Mr. Hardy, F.I.A., F.S.S., Census Report, 1891, vol. ii. The rate for all Provinces (combined) is calculated at 48.8 per mille, and this may be assumed to represent, approximately, the rates for the areas for which separate calculations have not yet been made. The subsequent decade (1891–1900) was marked by abnormal conditions arising from famine and plague.

† Famine in these areas during last quinquennium.

In spite of defective registration, the recorded rates are generally high in comparison with those of Europe, outside Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy: the ‘probable true rates’ are much higher without exception. There is great variation both in the recorded rates of different areas for the same period, and in those of different years for the same area: this is partly due to the influence of famine, and partly to differences in the registration error, the approximate measure of which is obtained by comparing the ‘probable true rates’ with those recorded in the non-famine period (1881-90). In Europe the average number of births per 1,000 married women at age 15-50 may be put at 250; and consequently the Indian rates (column 5) indicate defective registration or relative infertility, and doubtless both factors are in operation.

We may now proceed to discuss the chief influences which determine these characteristic results. The marriage customs must undoubtedly be given a foremost place, for marriage is, in effect, not a voluntary contract as in the West, but a religious obligation, binding on both sexes, which is enforced by the social code and necessitated by the law of inheritance. Briefly, it is as a rule contracted, in the higher castes which acknowledge Brahmanical authority, with a girl who has not arrived at puberty (though consummation is generally deferred till then), while the husband is often much older; unions are forbidden between persons of the same kindred and between those of differing castes and sub-castes; more than one wife is permitted, failing male issue by the first; widowers may remarry, but this is not permitted to widows. The results are that marriage is almost universal, at the earliest practicable age; there is disparity in the ages of husband and wife; and, as a consequence, an excessive proportion of widows. These general rules and results are subject to modification in the practice of the lower Hindu castes, Musalmāns, Buddhists, Native Christians, and some aboriginal tribes. Among them, as a rule, the age of the female at marriage is generally higher and the disparity in the ages of husband and wife is less; there is also a freer choice, from the absence of caste restrictions; and there is no restriction on widow remarriage. The following figures will afford a clearer view of the situation by comparison with Europe: it is interesting to note in passing that Hungary occupies a position, in this respect, midway between East and West.

Among the many interesting facts to which these figures point, we may merely note the contrasts displayed in the proportions of the population married in India and Europe, and again in the proportions of the widowed and the single among males and females in India at the two age periods, denoting the earlier age at marriage of females and its penalty in widowhood. Here, then, are the conditions for a high birth-rate; but, at the same time, factors that doubtless operate to diminish the full measure of fertility which the mere marriage-rate would lead one to expect among a people the vast majority of whom are impelled by religious and social sanctions to disregard prudential considerations. The early age at marriage, with the premature strain on the immature functions, probably leads to early exhaustion in both sexes, which is perhaps hastened by the debilitating effects of malarial fevers to which all are subject; the practice of the prolonged suckling of infants may also operate. Lastly, the earliest age of procreative power is not the age of greatest fecundity.

But, in dealing next with the causes of the fluctuations in the birth-rate, we find influences at work of far greater and less questionable force: namely, those that affect prosperity, which, in India, is summed up for the masses in sufficient food and a relative diminution of sickness. The marriage rate is affected by the character of the harvests, as the ceremony involves lavish expenditure, loans being generally raised for which the crops are the security. But the birth-rate is a far more sensitive barometer of prosperity, because the marriage of children does not usually connote cohabitation. Nothing is clearer than the effects of marked abundance of food or the reverse upon the general state of the public health, and of both food and health upon the birth-rate. With any marked rise or fall in food prices there is immediately a similar movement in the death-rate, and an opposite movement in the birth-rate nine months later. When famine prevails and, subsequently, other factors co-operate, marriages are deferred and the able-bodied leave their homes in search of work or relief. With the recurrence of the first bountiful harvest the tide turns, deferred marriages are celebrated, cohabitation is resumed, and the sexual instinct, depressed by privation, resumes its sway fortified by rest and by comparatively abundant food. The death-rate now falls rapidly to below the normal, owing to the previous elimination of the physically weakest; and nine months later the birth-rate (calculated on the total population, which now contains a larger proportion of persons at the reproductive ages) rises with a bound and is maintained above the normal, generally for about a year, when the ordinary relations of the rates are resumed.

Similar influences may be traced in the normal seasonal incidence of the birth-rate, which is stamped with the same characteristic features in every Province, though these are subject to slight local modifications referable to the period of the harvest and of the greatest sickness and mortality. Speaking generally, where the staple food harvest is reaped in October there is a sudden rise in the birth-rate in July, continued through August to the maximum in September–October. There is a gradual fall during November–December, though the rate is still above the mean, which is reached in January; thenceforth the decline persists more or less steadily, to attain the lowest point in June. Where the staple food harvest comes in December, events are consistently postponed for about two months. The influence of the general health is manifest if the birth and death-rates are plotted together on a chart with an interval of nine or ten months between them, i.e. the death-rate for January against the birth-rate for October, and so on; the result is a striking contrast in the curves, the one falling as the other rises, though there may be occasional trifling exceptions to the rule. Again, on irrigated tracts with adequate drainage, where the crops are secure, the birth-rate is consistently high: conversely, where in water-logged areas the soil deteriorates and the people are prostrated by chronic malarial disease, there is often depopulation from impairment of fecundity.

Regarding the influence of race, the records only furnish particulars under local territorial distinctions: the main ethnic elements are nearly everywhere largely interfused, and any comparison between areas wherein the dominant element varies is vitiated by the registration error. Religion affords no reliable clue to ethnic distinctions. It is possible, however, to arrive at some estimate of the relative fecundity of the different races and sects by means of the Census returns of the proportion of children in each. As a rule, the aboriginal tribes and the Musalmānis (who are often proselytes from the lower Hindu castes) stand out from the general community in this respect. This is due partly to the more favourable marriage customs previously alluded to, and possibly also to the greater variety of food, which generally contains a larger measure of the animal element than among Hindus.

The proportion borne by males to females at birth is shown below:—

The range within each area is greatest where registration, always at its worst in regard to events affecting females, is most defective. The highest proportion of males is returned in areas where the male population outnumbers the female, and where the practice of female infanticide formerly prevailed; but in certain parts of two of the Provinces at the top of the list registration is notoriously very defective, viz. in the Western Punjab and in Sind. The records of Berar, where registration is at its best, show that the excess of males born in the January to June or July period is always very much higher than during the rest of the year, the mean during a normal quinquennium being, for the first six months of the year, 107.3, and for the last six months 104.8. Now the corresponding periods of conception are April to September and October to March; and the latter period is associated with three distinct factors—the harvest, the season of least sickness and mortality, and that of the lowest temperature, which would appear to influence favourably the relatively higher production of females ².

The results of urban and rural conditions on the birth-rate will be gathered from the statement below:—

The rates are, as a rule, lower in the towns, and lowest in the large industrial centres, owing, chiefly, to the unequal sex distribution of their population which is affected by the demand for adult male labourers—e.g. in Calcutta (1901) the proportion of males to females was as two to one, in Bombay over three to two, and in Rangoon nearly two and a half to one. The tendency to a general rise in the price of food which has marked recent times, while benefiting the agriculturist, has doubtless pressed heavily on the poorer classes in towns, where also the general standard of vitality is lower. Lastly, the women are frequently sent to their rural homes for their confinement.

The record of still-births has unfortunately not been maintained generally, but for Berar the returns give what is doubtless a fair indication of the proportion which occur in an agricultural community in India. Here, during the decade ending 1900, still-born males were at the rate of 5.2, and females of 4.1, per cent. of the live-births of the respective sexes. In the larger cities, however, the rates are far higher: in Calcutta the average for the three years ending 1900 was 8 per cent. of the live-births; in Rangoon it was 11.6 per cent.; and in Bombay the mean for 1895-9 was 12.9 per cent., rising to 18.7 in the last year. But here the rates have recently been affected by the prevalence of plague and famine, which have driven mothers from and to the city in a destitute condition. The figures represent the pressure of want and insanitary conditions, and, doubtless, of barbarous midwifery; at the same time there is no guarantee that all these infants were actually born dead. The unfavourable conditions attending parturition in India ensure a high mortality of mothers and infants, but the way is open to gross neglect and, occasionally, to infanticide.

The introductory remarks, and the account given of marriage and the birth-rate, will have prepared the reader for some of the notable characteristics of the mortality figures. The following table affords a review of the death-rates recorded:

• During 1892–1900, births for years prior to 1892 not being available.

† During 1883-1900, , , , 1883 ,

‡ Famine in these areas during this period; plague in Bengal, United Provinces, Punjab, Madras, and Bombay.

The ‘probable true normal rates’ are estimates based on the Census data of 1881 and 1891 by Mr. Hardy, F.I.A., F.S.S.; the rate for all British India being 39.6 per mille (see Census Report, 1891, vol. ii). The Assam rate is probably somewhat higher than that of Bengal, while the rates of the Central Provinces and Berar probably come between those of the United Provinces and Bengal.

We see, first, that, in spite of defective registration, the recorded rates are, generally, very high, and exhibit a progressive rise; they are indeed much above the European standard if Austria-Hungary and Italy be excluded. They vary greatly in different areas during the same period, and in the same areas from year to year; and while this is characteristic of the figures at all times, we have to distinguish the exaggerating effects of special morbidific influences, such as famine. While the progressive rise in the rates is doubtless partly due to improved registration, the inter-Provincial variations are largely the result of differences in the registration error which preclude the use of the figures for any valid comparison of the ordinary vital conditions of different areas. This is made clear if the recorded rates are compared with the ‘probable true rates’ (column 6); but as the local error varies inappreciably from year to year, the former afford valuable indications of the course of events in each separate area. Lastly, special attention is invited to the remarkable range of fluctuation in the Provincial rates (column 5), and to the figures showing the number of years in which the deaths have exceeded the births in each area (column 7). In all respects the greatest contrast is presented to the English statistics, and this, as we have seen, applies equally to the birth-rate: indeed, the connexion between the vital phenomena is very intimate and direct under the controlling influence of the environment, to the ordinary well-defined variations of which, every now and then, cyclical changes of a catastrophic kind are superadded. These changes, ordinary and extraordinary, are stamped upon the population, influencing its age-constitution, its vitality, and consequently its longevity and its rate of increase, with necessary reaction upon the death-rate. With a fluctuating tendency to increase during ordinary years, there are recurrent halts and local retrocessions which profoundly alter the age-constitution, by the suspension of reproductive power on the one hand, and by excessive mortality, which is most marked at certain ages, on the other. The general effects of famine in this respect have been briefly described, and some of the remarkable features of the death-rates are thus explained.

Before tracing the incidence and causes of the mortality in detail, it is necessary to glance at the age-distribution of the population, not only because it exhibits the vital material exposed to the struggle, but because it marks the effect of past vicissitudes and so affords the best corrective to the death-rates which are inaccurate as to both the numbers and the ages of the dying. The following table shows the numbers per thousand living in India at three age-periods at the Census of 1891 and of 1901, respectively, together with corresponding figures for England and Wales (1901). The influence of the intervening years of famine is shown in the diminished proportion of the under 5 population in India in 1901 as compared with 1891:—

The figures for India (1891) are taken from the adjusted age-tables furnished by Mr. Hardy to the Census Report.

We may now briefly trace the incidence of mortality on age and sex, its chief causes, and their local and seasonal distribution. Any attempt to find a mean that would accurately express the resultant of all the conditions in the struggle could only have, at best, an academic interest when the irregular intervention of profoundly disturbing factors is borne in mind, factors too that operate unequally in different areas. For the present purpose it will be more useful to obtain an idea of the rates which apply to India as a whole under ordinary conditions; and, for the rest, it will suffice to apply the general considerations as to the special effect of famine and the accompanying epidemic diseases, which have been set forth. The inaccuracies in the age returns (Census) and in the registration data render the Provincial records misleading as they stand; but the former may be adjusted, and the latter corrected, in the light of certain local mortality statistics that may be deemed both representative and fairly accurate, the observed rates of increase in the population at different ages affording valuable guidance. In this way Mr. Hardy has been able to arrive at standard rates, which, though largely estimated, may be accepted as approximately accurate. For full details of his methods and results, his valuable contributions to the Indian Census Reports of 1881 and 1891 must be consulted. The following statement, which is based thereon³, shows the ordinary death-rates and the expectation of life at the different ages for both sexes, with the corresponding English figures for comparison:—

Sickness and Mortality per 1,000 by Age and Length of Service among the European Troops in India (1895-9)¹

These figures are very significant as regards both the details for India and the contrast they afford to the English rates. The excess mortality in India is proportionally greatest at the 5–24 age period, when, however, the deaths represent only 14·25 per cent. of the total at all ages; the next thirty years (25–54) account for 25·5 per cent. of the total mortality; for the rest of life it is 17·7 per cent., leaving 42·6 per cent. to fall upon the 0–5 age period. The heavy loss in the working period of life is of grave import from an economic point of view, especially when the tax paid in sickness and the shorter duration of life are taken into account. It may be assumed that there are probably three cases of sickness for every death, and at this rate the number constantly sick among the 232 millions of British India would amount to nearly 28 millions. This sickness falls heavily upon the adult population, and is generally of a nature that confers no immunity, but—especially in the case of malaria, dysentery and diarrhoea, and lung diseases—rather increases the liability to subsequent attacks. Where it does not temporarily prostrate, as is not infrequently the case, it often involves a lower rate of wages for labourers, and everywhere depresses the moral and physical character, and so forms a potent source of poverty. This view is enforced by the contrast between India and England in respect to the duration of life: between 15 and 35 years of age the probabilities are from 36 to 38 per cent. for males, and from 34 to 48 per cent. for females, less favourable in India: the difference at birth amounts to 79 and 85 per cent., respectively.

In regard to sex, while the estimated death-rates at all ages in India are 40-6 and 38-6 per mille for males and females, respectively, there is a notable contrast in the relative incidence of mortality on the 10-34 age-periods and the rest of life. This is most marked where the male population outnumbers the female—as is the case generally in the north and northwest, and notably in the Punjab and the United Provinces. During the first year of life the female death-rate is lower than the male, but the advantage gradually diminishes, to disappear at the age of 6 to 7. From this point females die off in higher proportion, the excess being greatest at 15-20, after which the difference diminishes until at age 35 it disappears, and thereafter the female rate remains lower. Here doubtless we get a broad indication of the period of procreative life, and of the special dangers that attend it owing to early marriage and the disparity of the ages of parents, to the special insanitary conditions to which the parturient woman is subjected (she being deemed ‘unclean’ by religious ordinance), and to barbarous midwifery. In many classes of the community the wife takes a large share of bread-winning labour, besides being the domestic drudge. There is abundant evidence of the great prevalence of puerperal fevers and convulsions, and of the frequency of ‘accidents,’ often induced by the meddlesome methods of native midwives. If we could assume that the difference in the male and female death-rates at the 10-34 age-periods represents the loss of maternal life in child-bed, it would indicate fully 150,000 deaths annually on the present population of British India, or about one death to every 75 live-births². The Dufferin Association, by the employment of qualified lady doctors and the training of midwives, has done, and is doing, work of inestimable value in the salvation of life and in the diminution of suffering, from which, in time, other important results will follow. The statistics of suicide, which indicate the far greater liability of the female sex to this form of death, give, doubtless, some indication of the disabilities to which women are subject in India, among which a lack of care during illness may be included.

Starting from Ireland and progressing east and south, there is a gradual and regular rise in the mortality of infants, until in India, under ordinary circumstances, probably about one-third of those born die within the first year of life, these deaths constituting about 26 per cent. of the total mortality. The following table gives the rates per 1,000 recorded in the principal Provinces during the ten years ending 1900, with other particulars:—

Although the period includes years in which famine and exceptional epidemic disease prevailed in several areas, it is certain that in nearly every case the above record fails to convey an accurate measure of the loss in ordinary times. Probably this is adequately expressed by the Central Provinces rate alone, while in Madras more than one-third of the deaths are unrecorded. These Provincial rates, moreover, are the means of the District rates, which vary enormously in the same year and under apparently similar conditions. Clearly, defective registration is largely accountable, as is shown by the fact that the rates are consistently highest, and the range lowest, where registration is at its best. If, however, the results in any single area be compared with its own record, valuable indications are afforded of the general state of health and of the material resources of the people. The rates for the famine years are for the whole area calculated on the mean of the births for the year and the one preceding; but if the most severely affected tracts be taken and the calculation be based on the births of the year, the results are more portentous: e.g. in 1900 490 infants were recorded as dying out of 1,000 born in Berar; in Bombay, among a population of seven millions, the rate was 462; and in the worst-stricken areas of the Central Provinces it was over 500. Again, the urban rates (column 5) testify to the specially insanitary conditions of life in the towns, of which an approximate idea may be obtained from the rate of the United Provinces (304), for though famine increased the mortality in some of the areas, this was not the case here in the period taken (1898-1900). Lastly, in the Presidency cities and Rangoon the following rates were recorded: Calcutta 377, Madras 284, Rangoon 402, representing in all cases the means of the five years ending with 1900. In Bombay the mean rate of the twenty years ending 1895 was 421, and for 1896-1900 it was 711; but this, while marking the influence of famine and pestilence, is largely the effect of the very defective registration of births, and of fatalities among the destitute refugees brought into the city to die. The heavy mortality everywhere may be ascribed to the immaturity and ignorance of the mothers, and to the physical labour the majority are called upon to perform; to improper feeding, and to the exposure of infants to all the influences of an insanitary environment wherein the causes of malaria, small-pox, measles, bowel complaints, and tetanus abound. The practice of female infanticide, which but a few years since prevailed among certain high-caste Hindu clans, chiefly in the United Provinces, the Punjab, and Bombay, and to suppress which special laws were enacted, may now be deemed a negligible quantity in the sum of the causes in operation.

The relative influence of urban and rural conditions on the mortality at all ages is a subject that invites extended reference, but it is impossible to do more here than suggest some of the main considerations. Nine-tenths of the people live from the land, the average population of an Indian village being about 360. About twenty-nine millions out of the 294 millions enumerated in 1901 occupy the towns, of which there are altogether 2,148; and of this number 1,427 towns contain less than 10,000 inhabitants, 471 between 10,000 and 20,000, while twenty-nine of the remaining 250 have a population of upwards of 100,000. There is a marked contrast in the conditions of life between the great rural majority and the town minority as regards occupation and the complex influences arising from aggregation in different degrees. A civilization that might be justified in one case is entirely at a disadvantage in the other; and yet we find that as the original court and camp centres of the old régime developed into industrial towns and trade emporia, and while these grew and multiplied, there was no corresponding advance in civic organization, no adjustment to the new conditions. The circumstances were similar to those of camps, and precluded resort to the primitive methods of village conservancy, and year by year the consequences gathered fatal force. During the early period of British rule the governing power was engrossed in extending and consolidating its position, its representatives were few and scattered, and it was part of its policy to refrain from interference with the domestic concerns of the people, who have since shown themselves slow to co-operate in the development of municipal institutions. Much has been accomplished since 1870 by the provision of pure water-supplies, and of drainage and conservancy systems; but the conditions already developed have largely neutralized their effect, and the authorities of the largest cities have now to face the necessity of radical schemes of reconstruction at enormous cost. The following table affords a comparison of the urban and rural death-rates recorded in the different Provinces during the five years ending with 1900: the abnormal sex-distribution, due to an excess of adult males which is a feature of the town populations nearly everywhere save in Madras, while it tends to lower the rates, enhances their significance. It must also be pointed out that famine and plague in recent years have set up cross tides of migration, to and from the towns, which render the records in many centres especially subject to qualification.

The excessive proportion in towns of indoor artisans, of the over-poor, and of the criminal and vicious classes, doubtless involves crowding in cities: a lower average standard of physique. But of all factors in operation, the influence of aggregation is paramount: everywhere the intimacy of the family bond, with its ménage in common often for three generations, entails disabilities in this connexion, but in the larger towns the dangers are greatly enhanced by economic causes. Bombay probably presents an extreme example of conditions which characterize many Indian towns, but which have no parallel in the West. The Census of 1901 discloses that 87 per cent. of all the tenements in Bombay consist of one room only, and that within these 80 per cent. of the population find shelter. In no one of the seven wards of the city is the proportion so accommodated less than 67 per cent., and in two it rises to 88. Each of these single rooms contains on an average 4-2 persons; and with this extremity of density the tenements are aggregated in huge many-storied blocks, with every arrangement, both within and on the site, calculated to defeat the access of light and air and to accumulate damp and faecal products. The conditions are such as to necessitate the constant use of artificial light during the day, and it is scarcely surprising to find that the death-rate from pulmonary phthisis for the whole city averaged 9-4 per mille during 1899 and 1900: in one ward (population 130,000) where the density is greatest, the phthisis death-rate in 1900 was reported to be 16·4 per mille. These results are confirmed by the returns of the local jail, wherein, during the three years ending 1900, 11·6 per mille of average strength died of this disease annually, the rate for London being about 1·8. The low remuneration of labour makes the problem of housing, and of the sanitary conversion of these enormous rookeries in all the large towns, one of stupendous difficulty; and the most strenuous efforts from without will fail of their full effect unless the people co-operate, and evolve a higher standard of domestic hygiene.

Taking the figures for Hindus and Muhammadans under similar conditions, the death-rates are, as a rule, in favour of the latter. This is the more notable as the Musalmāns, as a body, are often included in the poorer sections of the community; they are frequently proselytes from the lower caste Hindus; and in the United Provinces they congregate more largely in the towns. Nevertheless, for the period 1891-1900 the mean death-rate of Muhammadans was lower than that of Hindus in the Punjab, the United Provinces, Madras, Bombay, and Lower Burma, and in Bengal during 1891-96. In the native army, during the five years 1895-9, the mean death-rate of Hindus (all classes) was 8-8 per mille, while that of Muhammadans was only 3-6. Again, the available records of the mortality from plague, while subject to many qualifications, afford testimony to the greater power of resistance which Musalmāns enjoy. Lastly, the death-rate among Eurasians and Native Christians (though race cannot be invoked in the latter case) is almost everywhere invariably lower than that of the general native population. It is probable that the nature and variety of the food play a considerable part in the production of these results.

The following statement will convey a broad general idea of the distribution of the chief causes of mortality, as registered:—

The previous discussion of the death-rate makes it evident that a large proportion of the mortality is unregistered—of which perhaps 40 per cent. is referable to the deaths of infants. Next, the proportion under each registered cause to the total is, in nearly every case, misleading, notably so as regards the deaths from fevers, bowel complaints, and ‘all other causes.’ Premising that diseases of the lungs should have been recorded under the last of these heads, and that nearly every fatal illness in which there is a marked rise of temperature is ascribed to ‘fever,’ it may be affirmed generally that the actual mortality should be much more equally distributed between these three classes. This view is based on the evidence of the returns from the Native army and the jail population, of the civil hospital records, and of the results of special inquiries into the causes of death made by qualified practitioners in certain centres. Malarial fever is, however, doubtless a contributory in the majority of cases, either by lowering natural resistance to other diseases or by actively complicating these. The following statement shows how the recorded mortality is distributed locally, and the composition of the death-rate under ordinary conditions:—

These figures are the means of five years of a fairly normal period (1892–6), and are subject to the qualifications already indicated. The cholera rate of the United Provinces is a little higher than the normal, and for the rest it may be said that the Berar figures most nearly represent the truth. To show how the rates are modified by exceptional causes, the figures recorded in three areas recently affected by famine are subjoined.

This exhibits the effects of a diminished power of resistance to all disease causes, which acquired epidemic force owing to deficient and improper food, impure water, and the wanderings of the people in search of work and relief.

The ordinary causes of sickness and mortality may be said to fall mainly into three great classes. First, the specific fevers, including malaria, small-pox, influenza, Malta fever, cerebrospinal meningitis, typhus, and doubtless others that await differentiation. Second, those affecting the abdominal organs: notably cholera and enteric fevers, dysentery and diarrhoea. Lastly, the lung diseases—tubercle, pneumonia, bronchitis, &c.; the first two being specific infections, and all frequently the sequelae of fevers and bowel complaints. Another fact of great significance is the wide prevalence of intestinal and skin parasites, and of ulcers and other indications of scurvy. Thus, an overwhelming proportion of the sickness and mortality is due to diseases of which the salient property is communicability; and, at the same time, there is the evidence of deficient powers of resistance, and of insanitary habits and surroundings, viz. aggregation, foul air, deficient and impure water, and defective conservancy, including drainage. Each of the three groups of disease above mentioned can be causally associated with one or more of these defects, and it will be found that the composition of the death-rate varies locally with the degree of operation of these factors. Where, as in Bengal, the chief difficulties are connected with drainage and the conservancy of the water-supplies, we see a larger proportion of malarial fevers and of bowel complaints; where, as in the Punjab, the social customs and the climate lead to crowding in ill-ventilated tenements, the other specific fevers and lung diseases are more fatal. Climate, then, operates by favouring the life processes of the micro-organic causes of disease, and by influencing the food supplies and the density of the population, and also its domestic habits, of which the most important is the degree of aggregation. Limits of space preclude an examination of the seasonal incidence of mortality in the different areas which would make this clear, and the Provincial and special reports should be consulted. Nothing could be more striking than the obvious relation which the rainfall bears to the prevalence of fevers and of bowel complaints. There is an extraordinary rise in the mortality curve from both with the establishment of the monsoon; but as dysentery and diarrhoea (and cholera is subject to the same conditions) depend chiefly on impurities washed into the water-supplies by the first deluge after drought, their maximum is reached earlier than in the case of fevers, which depend on the formation of stagnant collections of water and the causes of which require a longer period of incubation and are less quickly fatal. In the case of both fever and bowel complaints there is a fall through the winter, with a smaller secondary rise in the hot weather, due probably to concentration of pollution of the water-supplies and to irrigation for agricultural purposes; and some of the fevers are then, possibly, of the enteric class, though malarial fevers also increase at this time. Small-pox, as in England, is more markedly prevalent in the winter, spring, and early summer, with a decided fall below the mean from July to November. Diseases of the lungs are most fatal during the rains and in the winter months, when, in addition to vicissitudes of climate, the people are crowded in their dwellings.

The circumstances under which excessive mortality from epidemics occurs have been generally indicated in the previous pages; and relapsing fever, dengue, and plague have to be added to the list of the specific fevers in this connexion. They are the results of some marked change in the relations of the aggregate of individuals to the environment, or of some exaggeration of the force of one or more of the factors. Failure of the rains, by diminishing the food-supply, has an immense and immediate effect on the vital powers of the population, lowering its resistance to all ordinary and extraordinary causes of mortality, while facilitating their propagation. On the other hand there is the danger of excess of rainfall; of cyclonic storms; of inundations from overflow of rivers, to which both the drier and the wetter tracts are subject. More gradual, but persistently fatal, are the results, in the shape of epidemic fevers, of the geographical transformations incident to the building up of land in deltaic areas, involving floods and alterations in the courses of rivers and of the natural drainage. The effects of aggregation vary with the conditions: on the one hand, an outbreak of cholera or small-pox among a concourse of pilgrims; on the other, the more gradual evolution of conditions that invite the ravages of plague and typhus.

The record of small-pox is very imperfect for the first seventy years of the nineteenth century: inoculation was widely practised and vaccination only made its way slowly against the prejudices of the people. The number of operations in India in 1850 did not exceed 350,000, but since then the quality and quantity of the work have steadily increased, the number of persons now annually protected exceeding eight millions. The figures below are interesting, and there is little doubt of the diagnosis of this disease, with which the most ignorant are familiar. The figures show a decrease in the mortality, account being taken of the growth of population, which represents the saving of about 1,160,000 lives in the third period as compared with the first, although, owing to plague and famine, all the conditions, save vaccination, were more favourable to the disease in 1890–1900.

For an account of the present plague epidemic the reader must be referred to the official reports, and especially to that of the Indian Commission of 1898-9. Since the recognition of the outbreak in Bombay in August, 1896, it has appeared in epidemic form in six of the Provinces of British India, and in several of the Native States. The aggregate number of deaths from plague recorded up to the end of 1903 amounted to 2,105,548, distributed, in round numbers, as follows: Bombay, including Sind, 934,000; Punjab, 454,000; Bengal, 178,000; United Provinces, 129,000; Central Provinces, 43,000; Madras, 30,000; Central India, 30,000; Mysore, 88,000; Hyderabad, 44,000; Kashmir, 10,000; Rajputana, 3,000. The record of deaths for Bombay city for the same period is 113,129, and for Calcutta 34,769.

The European army in India provides a select population of adult males (with a smaller number of women and children), aliens to the country and climate, and subject to the vicissitudes of war. The Native army consists of the pick of the manhood of the various indigenous races, also liable to war risks and to service outside their original habitat, a change to which most natives are peculiarly sensitive; while the majority of the prisoners represent the destitute and vicious sections of the general population. All these classes have been under daily medical observation for many years, the records of which possess a substantial scientific value, and there is also a large mass of literature dealing with many of the problems of public health. To these detailed sources of information, the most important of which are indicated in the Bibliography at the end of this chapter, we must refer the reader who would pursue the investigation of the many questions that arise out of the bare statement of the main facts, which is all that space admits of here. In regard to the brief historical review presented, it must be noted that the sanitary awakening in England, though heralded by a few army and navy surgeons at the end of the eighteenth century, may be dated from the middle of the nineteenth century. After the first Public Health Act (1848), there was little progress until the question of army sanitary reform engaged the attention of Royal Commissions in England (1858) and in India (1863), with important legislative results in both countries. A Sanitary Department was organized in India in 1864; but many medical officers had already been calling attention to defaults in the hygiene of the troops and prisoners, and considerable progress in amelioration had been made before the Indian Commission was appointed. The movement was therefore roughly synchronous with that in England.

The first table below shows the gross death-rates among European troops per mille of strength for periods commencing roughly with the term of office of the first Governor-General and ending with the Mutiny; and the table which follows, which also gives the rates per mille, affords some idea of the chief causes of mortality. It must be remembered, however, that during these periods wars were much more frequent than has been the case subsequently.

• Not available.

The extent of the sickness may be gathered from the fact that, during the whole period, the men were admitted to hospital at the rate of over 2,000 per mille of strength, while the loss by invaliding amounted to 29 per mille. The Royal Commission of 1863 expressed the opinion that a death-rate of 20 per mille might ‘be taken as the possible mortality under improved sanitary conditions,’ and the record of the first twenty years of what may be termed the sanitary era will show how soon their anticipations were to be more than realized:—

That is to say, an average death-rate of about 70 per mille during the first half of the century had been reduced to an average of 17·5, which is equal to a saving of over 100,000 lives on the average strength in the last thirty years. The following figures show the position during the six years ending with 1900:—

If field operations be excluded, the death-rate for India falls to 15·6 per mille. Out of every thousand men, 30 were invalided annually, but of these only 10·6 for discharge from the service. The following statement shows how the liability to sickness and mortality is affected by age and length of foreign service:—

The marked effect of enteric fever on the relative age incidence of mortality will be noted. Lastly, more than half the total invaliding is due to four classes of disease: namely, venereal diseases, 23 per cent.; intermittent and remittent fevers, 11; diseases of the heart and circulation, 11; and debility, 9 per cent.

The mortality among officers of the Company’s service during the period 1814–33 is stated to have been at the rate of 38 per mille of strength per annum, and that for officers of the Royal Army in India, 34 per mille: the contrast afforded by the figures for the six years ending with 1900, in which it fell to 14·4 per mille, is striking and instructive. The chief causes of mortality are similar to those affecting the troops, though there is a lower fatality under each head save cholera.

The early records of sickness and mortality among the women connected with the European army are scanty and unreliable; but in the Bengal army the average annual death-rate for the four years before the Mutiny was 44·5 per mille, and this rose to 49·6 during the four years following. It fell to an average (for India) of 24·5 per mille during the first decade of the sanitary era, and the present improved conditions are shown by the fact that in 1895–1900 it was only 16.6 per mille.

The average annual death-rate among European soldiers’ children in the Bengal army during the four years prior to the Mutiny was 84·1 per mille, and it rose to 93·3 in the decade-ending 1870, the mortality from cholera accounting for 11·2 of the total. The effect of sanitary measures is perceptible in the decrease to 67·8 per mille (for India) in 1871-80, and to 44·4 for the six years ending with 1900. Of the mortality of recent years 94 per cent. occurs within the first five years of life: the average death-rate for the first year is 195 per mille, and for the 0-5 age-period 71, or about 15 more than that in England and Wales. Measles and whooping cough caused annually 50 cases of sickness among every 1,000 children, and diphtheria and croup accounted for 25 deaths in the six years ending 1900, a rate of 0·74 per annum.

It is impossible to obtain an accurate measure of the sickness and mortality of the Native troops in the past, for the records take no account of that occurring among the men who were absent from their regiments on leave. While some general idea may be obtained from the following statement, which mainly corresponds to the second quarter of the nineteenth century, it may be said that the true gross death-rate probably amounted then to at least 22 per mille:—

Passing over the next twenty-five years, the records for which are similarly vitiated but indicate little change in the conditions, we come to the first decade of the sanitary era (1871-80), when the admissions to hospital averaged 1,287 per mille of strength, and the death-rate 20·3¹, while 34 men in every thousand were invalidated for discharge. We may now examine the position in 1895-1900, as set forth in the following table:—

Sickness and Mortality per 1,000 in the Native Army of India (1895-1900).

A = Admissions to hospital ; D = Deaths.

To this, which shows a reduction in the mortality of nearly 50 per cent., equal to an annual saving of over 1,200 lives, it may be added that the invaliding rate has fallen to 13 per mille of strength. Enteric fever caused only 204 admissions and 67 deaths during the six years, yielding ratios of 0.3 and 0.09 per mille per annum, respectively: that is to say, the European troops are about 88 times more liable to this disease, from which the mortality to strength is nearly 80 times greater, than are the troops of the Native army.

The following statement exhibits (per 1,000) the general character of the jail mortuary statistics during a period which corresponds roughly to the second quarter of the nineteenth century:—

During the next seventeen years there was little improvement. The death-rate for Bengal averaged 68.2 per mille, but in Bombay it fell to 44.2, while in Madras it rose to 78.5 owing chiefly to outbreaks of cholera. This brings us to the year 1870, the commencement of the sanitary era and of the appointment of medical officers to the full administrative charge of jails. During 1871-80 the average death-rate in Bengal was 46.6 per mille, and in Bombay 53.7. In Madras it was still as high as 73.9, but two-thirds of the mortality occurred in famine years (1877-8). If this period be excluded, the Madras rate falls to 36 per mille, and the combined rate for all India to 46.4. We may now examine in detail the record of the twenty years ending with 1900, and in order to convey an idea of the present position, the figures for 1881-94 and 1895-1900 are given separately. In the latter period they are deduced from an average annual strength, for all India, of 112,951 prisoners.

Sickness and Mortality per 1,000 among Prisoners in India, 1881–1900.

*Under ‘fevers’ are grouped ‘intermittent,’ ‘remittent,’ ‘simple continued’ and ’enteric’ fevers, the death ratio of 2.15 (1895-1900—all India) being made up thus: intermittent 0.95, remittent 1.05, simple continued 0.04, and enteric 0.11. Intermittent fevers cause four times as many admissions as remittent and half as many again as simple continued: there were only 168 cases of enteric in all the jails during the six years period.

† Famine in 1896–7 and in 1900.

This shows a reduction in the combined death-rate (India) of nearly 60 per cent. compared with the period up to 1870. It must be noted, too, that during 1895-1900 famine and exceptional epidemic disease prevailed in at least five of the Provinces, and affected the population in nearly all, driving to crime large numbers of the destitute, many of whom were admitted to jail in the last stages of disease and want. In the three years 1901-3 the death-rates for all India have fallen to 26.8, 24.8, and 21.4 per mille respectively.

It is calculated that under normal conditions the death-rate of the free population between the ages of 20 and 64 is about 29 per mille, so that the present jail death-rate affords testimony to the care and skill bestowed on the prisoners, who are for the most part drawn from the poorest and most deprived sections of the community. As regards the causes of mortality, it will be seen that the proportion borne to the total by the sum of the four classes of disease distinguished in the table on page 530 is 54 per cent. in the last period (1895-1900), against 59 per cent. in the first (1833-53). There has, therefore, been little or no change in the nature and type of the chief disease causes; but the death-rate from cholera has decreased by 7.8 per mille, that from fevers by 8.7, that from dysentery by 11.6, or by about 28 per mille under the three heads, while the phthisis rate has increased by 1.9, owing doubtless to improved diagnosis. The death-rate from small-pox (1895-1900) was only 0.07 per mille.

Comparison of European and Native troops and prisoners as regards disease statistics.

Finally, it will be instructive to compare the incidence of the chief causes of sickness and mortality on the three classes hitherto discussed (European and Native troops and prisoners), taking the mean results for the five years 1895-9.

In every 100 admissions to hospital there were among :—

• Excluding tubercle and pneumonia.

In every 100 deaths there were among :—

As regards sickness, the Europeans are specially liable to a class of disorder from which the natives under comparison are much freer, owing largely to marriage or incarceration. In regard to the mortality, we see the pre-eminent fatality of specific bowel and lung diseases, though its relative measure varies with the circumstances, including the susceptibility and vitality of the subjects. The disabilities of the class from which the prisoners are drawn have been alluded to; those of the Native troops are largely due to exposure to strange climates, not necessarily outside India, and to their freedom to indulge their ingrained domestic customs in barracks. If it were not for enteric fever, the probabilities of life for the European troops would be as good as for males at the same ages in England; but the subject is too extensive and intricate for discussion here, and is dealt with at length in the reports about to be mentioned. The prospects of a further diminution of the present comparatively low death-rate lie chiefly in the direction of the prevention of this disease, and that it will be achieved to a large extent admits of little doubt.

The following statement of the sickness and mortality (per 1,000) from cholera among the troops and prisoners in Bengal, the ‘home’ of the disease, may fitly close this brief review, as it affords a significant summary of the results of the application of sanitary measures to which the foregoing pages bear ample testimony:—

These figures refer to communities over the physical conditions of which the Government and its officers exercise more or less control, though the troops live among, and come into constant contact with, the general population. Moreover, there are conditions inalienable from the concentration of large bodies of men in barracks or jails which enhance the difficulties of excluding sickness of a communicable nature. The results prior and subsequent to the sanitary era may be contrasted; and it should be noted that the period 1895–1900 is one in which cholera among the general population was, owing to famine and scarcity, prevalent beyond all previous record.

A. E. ROBERTS

• Cases and deaths among those absent from their regiments not included before 1870.

General Population.—(a) The record of the Vital Statistics on a uniform system commenced in 1864 with (1) the Annual Reports of the Presidency Sanitary Commissions (1864-8): these led to (2) the subsequent Annual Reports of the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India and (3) of the Provincial Sanitary Commissioners. The foregoing are summarized in the Reports (4) presented to Parliament on Sanitary Measures in India (1868 to date), and are completed by (5) the General and Provincial Census Reports, 1872, 1881, 1891, and 1901.

(b) Medical and charitable relief—the annual Provincial Reports (6) on Vaccination, from 1861–9 to date, the year of commencement varying in different Provinces; (7) on Hospitals and Dispensaries, from 1852–76 to date; (8) the several Famine Reports, notably those of the Commissions of 1880 and 1901.

(c) The Special Reports on Epidemic Disease in India are very numerous, and only the main sources will be cited as they contain the necessary references. For cholera, (9) the Reports of the Presidency Boards on the great epidemic of 1817, and that of the Commission of 1861; (10) the Statistical Record of Cholera in Bengal from 1817 to 1872, by Bryden (1874); the Sanitary Reports (2) and (3) supra bring the record up to the present date, the volumes of (2) for 1878 and 1894 being specially valuable. For epidemic malarial fever, in Bengal and Assam, see early volumes of (3) for Bengal, and (11) the Reports of Elliott (1863); Giles (1890); Rogers (1897); Ross (1899).

For Plague, (12) Report of Indian Commission of 1898-9 (1901).

Army.—(13) Report of the Royal Commission on the Sanitary Condition of the Army in India (1863); (14) Bryden’s Statistical Tables (Bengal) from 1858 to 1870—the Sanitary Reports (2) bring the record up to date; (15) Army Medical Department Reports, 1859 to date.

Prisoners.—See (14) and (2); (16) the Annual Reports of the Inspectors-General of Jails from 1850-66 to date; (17) Reports of the Jail Committees of 1838, 1864, 1877, and 1889.

NOTE.—Nos. (2) and (3) and many of the official reports quoted may be obtained in London from Messrs. Arnold, Constable, Sampson Low, and other publishers; in Berlin, from Messrs. Friedländer; in Paris, from Messrs. Leroux.

A

Aboriginal races and languages of India; probably Dravidian, 298, 299, and Mundā, 382, 383; the Santāls, 431, 296; the tribes of Chotā Nāgpur, 296, 308, 309; the Khonds of Orissa, 309; the Gonds, 428; a leaf-clad Mundā tribe, speaking Juāng, 384; Mongoloid tribes of the Assam hills, 309, 387; their nature-worship found in the Mahābhārata, 418, 432; in the cult of Siva, 420; in Animism, a constituent of many creeds and the basis of the present religion of the peasant, 432, 433. See also Dravidian, Mundā, Tribes, Animism, Totemism, Exogamy.

Afghanistan, its physical aspects, 11–14; the chief passes to, 10; its four great river basins, 11; absorption of its rivers in deserts, 11, 12; its extensive system of irrigation, 12; its mountains, 12, 13; its valleys, 13, 14; the Hindu Kush, 12; dependent upon storms for rain, 140; ethnology of, 293; ethnography of the Afghan type of tribe, 309, 330; its language, Pashto, an Iranian tongue, 354; its distribution, character, dialects, literature, and the number of its speakers, 354, 355.

Age, statistics of, 478; mean age of living, 24-9 years, 478; higher in Aryan N. India than in Mongolian and Dravidian Bengal and Bombay, 478; influenced by ratio of death and birth rates, by famines, 478; a table of age-distribution of the population in India and England, 514; mortality and expectation of life at different ages in India and England, with a table, 514-516; age as a factor in mortality from enteric, 528. See also Infantile Mortality, Census Table VII.

Aghoris, a Saiva sect, eaters of filth and corpses, 421.

Agni, the Vedic god of fire, 403.

Ahmadiyas, the, a recent sect of Islam in the Punjab, 438; their leader, Mullā Ghulām Ahmad, claims to be at once Mahdi and Messiah, 438; the Koran contains all knowledge, 438; discourages religious war, 438; denounces Christianity, Hinduism, the Shiah doctrines, and English education, 438.

Akbar the Great, his tolerance of Hinduism, 434; of Christianity, 442.

Aligarh, the Anglo-Oriental College at, 438; representative of the progressive party in Islam, 438.

Allahābād, meteorology of, 126.

Alluvial remains: Elephas namadicus, 100; Hippopotamus, 100; Bos namadicus, 100.

Anaimalai Hills, the physical aspects of, 40; meteorology of, 114.

Andamans, the, geology of, 90, 94; recent isolation of, 99; botany of, 203, 204; their language Andamanese, really a group of agglutinating languages, 389.

Animism, what is meant by the term, 430, 431, 473 (footnote); a mass of primitive beliefs, the real faith of the people, 430; largely non-Aryan in its origin and distribution, 432; prevalent at all times and everywhere, 432; census returns of only nominal value, 432; in its purest form among the forest races of the Peninsula and Himalayas, 431; their kingdoms and dynasties, 431; its effect on Islam, 435; its fusion with Islam in the Pachpiriyas, 435, 436; the religion of 3 per cent. of the population, 471; the regional distribution of Animists, 472, 473.

Antelopes, three genera peculiar to the Peninsula, 234; the Nilgai, the Four-horned Antelope, the Indian Antelope or ‘black buck,’ their distribution, haunts and habits, 235; the Tibetan Antelope, 235; Gazelles, 235.

Anthropometry, as applied to Ethnology, 284, 285; data of, in India, 286, 287; methods of, applied to head, 288, 289, nose, 289, 290, orbit of eye, 291, stature, 292; conditions favourable to anthropometry and its peculiar value in India, 285, 286, 288.

Apabhramsa (‘corrupt’), title given to the true vernaculars after the Prākrits became literary and polished, 361; the parents of the modern vernaculars, 362.

Approaches by land and gateways of India, 5, 6, 10, 18.

Arāvalli mountains, their antiquity and degradation, 1; divide Indian desert or the Thar from South Rājputāna, 33; meteorology of, 123; botany of, 176, 177.

Army of India, vital statistics of, 525–530. See Specific Fevers, Enteric, Cholera, Phthisis.

Aryan Languages, their passage from synthesis to analysis, 351; supersede indigenous forms of speech, 351; a branch of Indo-European family, 352, its original home probably in Steppe country of S. Russia, 352, its division into centum-speakers, who travelled westwards, and satem-speakers of the eastward, to which Aryan and other groups belong, 352; migration of Aryans by Jaxartes and Oxus to Khokand and Badakshan, 353, their division into Indo-Aryans, marching south over the Hindu Kush by Kābul to India, and Eranians (Iranians) towards Merv, Persia, Baluchistan, and Afghanistan, 353; their present area in India, 351.

Aryan, the race, its possible existence, physical characteristics and original habitat, 299, 352.

Aryan (geological) era, the, 68–103.

Aryo-Dravidian or Hindustani Type or Race, the, 294; its distribution, physical and social characteristics, 294; Dr. Hoernle’s theory, 303, 304, supported by Dr. Grierson’s Linguistic Survey, 303, 304, as due to a later swarm of Aryans unaccompanied by women, 303, 304.

Asoka (269-232 B.C.), king of the Mauryan dynasty, and patron of Buddhism, 411; transformed it from a local cult to a world-wide religion, 411.

Assam, valley of 27, compared with Bengal and Burma, 27, its narrowed vista and area of cultivation, 27, its tea-gardens, 27, its clearings, 27, its better climate, 27, its enormous wastes, 27, the jungles of the Duars of Bhutan Himalayas, 27; obstacles to railway connexion with Burma, 20; Assam and NE. Himalayas geologically later than NW. Himalayas, 2; largest rainfall in Assam hills, 104; earthquake of 1897, 98; meteorology of: hailstorms, 117, rainfall of hot weather, 118, 141, 122, 123, 130, 136, 140, 142; botany of, see Gangetic Plain; zoology of, 214; ethnology of, 295; the language of the upper and middle Assam valley, Assamese, with an important literature, 378, of North, Eastern and Central Assam, and the lower valley, 387; population and density in, 451, 452; growth of population in, 462; favoured by immigration of tea-coolies, 462; checked by kalazar, 462; birth-rate, 506; death-rate, 512.

Aurangzeb, his bigotry and persecution of Hindus, 434.

B

Backergunge, cyclone of 1876, 135.

Bāgdi, Jeliya, Namasūdra or Chandāl, Pod, Rājbansi-Koch, castes of sixth class in Bengal, 328.

Baidyas, physician caste of second class in Bengal, 327; their doubtful pretensions, 327.

Baishtam, Sunri, Subarnabanik, castes of fifth class in Bengal, 328.

Baluchistan; physical aspects of, southern, 6, 7, northern, 8, 9; geology of, 75, 88, 90, 92, 93, 101; meteorology of, 113, 132; outside sphere of monsoon currents, 122; storms the main source of rain, 140; its annual rainfall, 145; botany of British Baluchistan, 209; ethnology of, 293; ethnography of the Baloch tribe, 310; absence of caste system, 329, 330; intermarriage customs, 330; its principal language, Baloch, an Iranian tongue, 353; its dialects, distribution, and the number of its speakers, 353, 354; Bāhui, a Dravidian language, spoken in the central highlands, 381.

Bamboos, 160; number of species, 162; in Sikkim, 167; in Western Himalayan Region, 172; in Indus Plain, 177; in Bengal proper, 181; in upper Gangetic plain, 181; none in Sundarbans, 184; in Malabar Region, 187; of Nilgiri Sholas, 188; in the Deccan, 192; in Ceylon, 195; in Burma, 199, 200, 201; in the Andamans, 204; in Malayan Peninsula, 206, 207.

Barwaik sept of Rājputs in Chānda, their humble extraction, 320, 321.

Batrachians, 272–274.

Bears, four species of, their distribution, haunts, and habits, 223, 224.

Bee-eaters (birds), 248.

Beast hospitals, 414.

Beast stories, 221.

Benares, the head-quarters of Brāhman orthodoxy, 421; the lingam of Siva the chief object of worship at, 421.

Bengal, rainfall in hot season, 118; date of wet monsoon, 124; castes of, 294, 326-329; population and density in Province of Bengal, 452; growth of population in different parts, 462; favourable and unfavourable conditions, 463; birth-rate, 506; death-rate, 512; infantile mortality, 517.

Bengali, the language of the territories subject to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal and the Bengali Districts of Assam, 376; the literary and official, with a highly Sanskritized vocabulary and archaic grammar, manufactured at the beginning of last century, unintelligible to the ordinary natives, 377; the spoken, divided into three groups of dialects, Western or standard, Eastern, and Northern, 377, 378.

Berâr, the home of Mâhârâshtri, the seat of a power which encouraged vernacular and Sanskrit literature, 361; its population and density, 453; birth-rate, 506; death-rate, 512; infantile mortality, 517.

Bhakti, or fervent devotion to God, of the Kabirpanthis, the only road to happiness and salvation, 425, 426.

Bhotiā (from Bhot, the Indian name of Tibet), the general name of a group of dialects, of which Tibetan is one, 386; connected with groups of Himālayan languages, ‘Pronominalized’ and ‘Non-pronominalized,’ 386; relations of both to an older tongue resembling Mundā, 387.

Bhumij of W. Bengal, a Dravidian race, with exogamous totemism, have adopted Bengali language, caste, and Brāhmanism, 313.

Bibliographies: geology, 102, 103; meteorology, 156; botany, 211, 212; ethnology and caste, 348; languages, 395-401; religions, 446; vital statistics, 535.

Bihār, date of wet monsoon in, 124, premature cessation, 130; ethnology of, 294; its language, Bihārī, 375; population and density of, 452.

Bihârî, the language of Bihâr, Patna, Gayâ, Tirhut, Bhojpur, Chotâ Nâgpur, 375; its three dialects, Maithili, Magahî, and Bhojpuri, 375, 376. See also Magadha.

Birds, 239–266.

Birth-rate, statistics of, 478, 479, 506; affected by marriage customs, 507, 508; by agricultural distress or prosperity, 508; by normal seasonal variations, 509; by supplies of food, 509; by disease, 509; higher among Muhammadans than Hindus, 510; proportion of male to female births, 510; urban and rural birth-rates, with table for Provinces, 511; proportion of still births, 511, 512; years in which deaths exceed births in the chief Provinces from 1881 to 1900, 512.

Bison, or Gaur (Bos Gaurus), found in all the great forest tracts, 231, 232.

Blanford’s The Rainfall of India, quoted passim in ch. iii upon decrease of rainfall and change of climate in modern times, 301, 302; ethnological inferences therefrom, 302.

Blindness, statistics and distribution of, 485.

‘Blue jay,’ so called, 248.

Boas and Pythons, 269.

Bohras, the ’traders’ of W. India, a sect of Islam, 438; mainly converts from Hinduism, 438; a mercantile group, originally Shiahs, 438; a land-holding group, generally Sunnis with a tendency towards Wahābism, 438.

Bolān pass between Sind and Baluchistan, 7.

Bombay city, 457; population of, 10,000 in 1661, 482,000 in 1906, 458; density of, 458; 75 per cent. immigrants, 38 per cent. women, 458; infant mortality in 1900, 518; overcrowding in, 520; the high death-rate from phthisis, 520.

‘Bombay duck,’ 278.

Bombay Presidency, date of wet monsoon, 124; delay of rainfall in Northern Bombay, 130; population and density, 452, 453; decrease of population since 1881 due to plague, 463; infantile mortality in, 517; birth-rate, 506; death-rate, 512.

Borderlands of India, physical description of, 6–21; wealth and strength of India largely dependent upon, 21, 22.

Borghat, the, 39.

Botany of British India, and some adjacent territories, ch. iv, pp. 157–212; only native flowering plants, ferns and their allies, included under term Flora in this Sketch, 157; Flora of British India varied and rich, but no Natural Order peculiar to it, 157; hence no Indian Flora proper, 158; phytogeographic anomalies few, 159; rhododendron belt of high Eastern Himalayas an exception to general absence of plants giving, like British beasts, a character to wide landscapes, 159; indigenous palms, 160; bamboos, 160; gregarious shrubs, 160; fresh-water flowering plants, 161; number of recorded Natural Orders and species, 161; dominant Orders, 162; proportion of Monocotyledons to Dicotyledons, of genera to species, 162; number of recorded species of Palms, Bamboos, Conifers, Cycalides, 162; characteristics of three primary botanical Areas in British India, 162; basis of subdivision into nine botanical Regions, 162; enumeration and limitation of Regions, 163; strict geographical limitations difficult or impossible, 164; rough coincidence of Regions with wet and dry areas of Prain’s Plants of Bengal, 164; with sub-areas of C. B. Clarke, 165; correspondence of Regions with sixty-four Provinces of Flora India, 165, 166; details of nine Regions, 166–207; (1) Eastern Himalayan Region, 166–170; in it Flora of Sikkim alone well-known, 166; Flora of Mishmi Hills, 166 n.; Sikkim, 166–170; tropical zone, 167, 168; temperate zone, 168, 169; alpine zone, 169, 170; (2) Western Himalayan Region, 170–176; tropical zone, 172; temperate zone, 173; alpine zone, 174; Tibetan valleys, 175; (3) Indus plain Region, 176–179; characteristic plants, 178, 179; peculiarities of Salt Range, Sind, and Indus Delta, 179; (4) Gangetic plain Region, 179–184; divided into three sub-regions, upper Gangetic plain, 180, 181; Bengal proper, 181, 182; and the Sundarbans and the Flora of the Indian Deltas, 182–184; contrast of Western Peninsula (Malabar and the Deccan) with Burma, 185, 186; (5) Malabar Region, 186–189; the Nilgiris, 187–189; the Lacadive Archipelago, 189; (6) Deccan Region, 189–193; subdivided into sub-regions of Deccan, 190–193, and of Coromandel, 193; (7) the Ceylon Region, 193–196; the Patanas, 195; the Maldives Archipelago, 196; (8) Burmese Region, 196–205; Burma, botanically richest and least known, 196; cardinal features of its Flora, 196–199; divided into sub-regions, Northern Burma, 199–200; Western and Southern, 200, 201; Eastern, 201–203; and Central Burma, 203; the Andaman Islands, 203, 204; the Nicobar Islands, 204, 205; (9) the Malayan Peninsula Region, 205–207; little known of its Flora, cardinal features, 205–207; Penang Islet, 207; Cocos and Keeling Islets, 207; Appendices: A. The Kuram Valley, 208; B. British Baluchistan, 209, 210. Bibliography, 211, 212.

Brahma, the first person of the Hindu Triad, in the Epic period, the Creator, 419, 420; now not widely worshipped, 423.

Brâhmanas, the, sacred Sanskrit writings explanatory of the sacrifices and duties of the priests, 404; later in thought than the Vedic Hymns, earlier than the Upanishads, 406.

Brähmanism, its birth-place in the ‘Midland,’ 404; a ritualistic and philosophical development of Vedism, 404; the Brähmanas, 404; supremacy of the priestly class, 404, 405; the subjection of the other classes, 407; a system of ritual and worship rather than of religion, 405; its vague eschatology, 405; its human sacrifice, 405, 406; its exclusion of all but Brähmans from the ascetic fraternities, 408, 414; reaction against, in Buddhism and Jainism, 406, 407; the compatibility of Hinduism with both, 408, 415, 416; the evolution from Brähmanism of modern Hinduism, 412, 417. See also Caste, Hinduism.

Brähmans, ethnology of, the Marathā Brähmans, 293; of Hindustān, 294; of Bihār, 294; of Bengal, 294, 295, 304; Nambudri or Nampūtiri of Malabar, 319; their traditional origin and exceptional customs and ritual, 319; Rāhi of Bengal, legend of, 304, 319, 320; Barna, 326, 331; Vyāsōkta, 326.

Brihmans, the, their mythical origin, 332; suppression of the Kshattriyas, 407; first of all castes in social precedence, 324–326; their social and ritual relations to other castes, 324–326; Brihmans and Brihmans, 326, 327; their wide diffusion and large number, 331; probably of mixed descent, 331; different theories of the origin of the caste or Brähmanical system, 332–347; more orthodox and powerful in South than in North India, 422.

Brahmaputra, the river, its origin in Tibet as Tsan-po, 19, 27; its course north of the Himalayas, 27; enters British territory as the Dihang, 27; after confluence with the Dibang and Luhit known as Brahmaputra, 27; in Assam and Bengal, 27, 28; junction with Ganges and Meghnā, 25, 28; their combined delta and estuaries, 27, 28; its crops and traffic, 28; not utilized for irrigation, 28; general characters of a deltaic river, 25-28.

Brahmaputra, valley of, important as highway to Tibet and China, 19; its agricultural possibilities, 19, 20.

Brāhui, ethnology of, 293; ethnography of the Brāhui tribe, 310, 382; social relations with the Baloch and Jats, 330; their Dravidian language, Brāhuī, 382.

Buddhism, 408-413; originally a system of monasticism and begging friars, itself a development of last and ascetic stages of Brahmanism, 408; subsequent antagonism, 408; its relations to caste then and now, 408; its ethics not new, 409; not concerned with theology and psychology, 409; its way of salvation, by purity and love, 409; its pessimism, 409; Nirvana, 410; the causes of its spread: its freedom from ritual, its practical benevolence, the personality of the master, 410; the divinity of Buddha not an original belief, 410; the influence of the Sangha or Congregation of the Monastic Order, 410; its rules of life finally more burdensome than caste, 410; Buddhism as a state religion under Asoka, 411; falling off in spirituality, 411; as a missionary religion reaching Ceylon, Burma, Siam, China, Japan, 411; later Indian Buddhism, 411; council of King Kanishka, 411; its decay and its causes, 411–413; its idealism, and the reform of Brahmanism, 412, 413, 421, 422; the rise of Muslim power, 412; its exclusion of the laity from its Sangha, 415; modern Buddhism in India, its habitats and numbers, 413, 473; survivals of Buddhism in Bengal, the Saraks, 413; contrasted with Jainism, 414; the religion of 3 per cent. of the population, 471; mostly found in Burma and Himalayas, 473.

Buffalo, wild and tame, 231, 232.

Bulbuls (birds), 241.

Burma, physical aspects of Northern or Upper, 20, 21, 199; of Lower, 21, 201; obstacles to railway communication with Upper Assam, 20; the Irrawaddy river, its rise, affluents, climate and products of its valley, 21.

Burma, geology of, the Purana group, 62, 63; older Palaeozoic in Upper, 67; Carbo-Trias, 70; Permo-Carboniferous, 74; serpentines and jadeites, 89; Miocene, 93; Tertiary records, 94; table of Tertiary formations, 95; Miocene Yenangyaung series, 94, 95; Irrawaddy system, 97; fossil wood, 97; probable equivalence with Siwalik series, 97.

Burma, meteorology of, 114, 119, 122, 128, 130, 135–137.

Burma, botany of Burmese Region, by far the richest of British India, and the least known, 196-205; forests, 197-199; of Northern Burma, like Eastern Himalayan, but without alpine zone, 199-200; of Southern and Western, 200, 201; of Eastern, 201-203; reports limited and conflicting, 202; of Central Burma, 203; of Andamans, 203, 204; of Nicobar Islands, 204, 205.

Burma, zoology of, 214; ethnology of, 295; absence of caste system, 330; endogamy of Thugaungs in Minbu, 330; its language, Burmese, 388; numbers nine millions of Buddhists, 413; population and density of, 453; rapid growth of population in, due to its great prosperity, 463, 464; birth-rate in Lower Burma, 506; death-rate, 512; infantile mortality, 517.

Burmese, the language of Upper and Lower Burma, 388; Arakanese, the most important of many dialects, 388; its considerable literature and a written character of its own, 388.

C

Calcutta, geology of, alluvium, 100; date of monsoon rain, 124; weather in July, 126; cyclone of 1864, 135; excessive downpour of rain, 144; population of, 457; in 1710, 12,000; in 1891, 1,106,738; one of the twelve largest cities of the world, 457; density of, 457; 75 per cent. immigrants, 33 per cent. females, 457.

Carp, all fresh-water fish, all edible; the rohu or rohi, the catla, the mahseer, others spotted and trout-like, 277.

Caste, the system of, derivation and implication of the term, 311; definition of caste, 311; absolute prohibition of mixed marriages its essential characteristic, 287; conversion of tribes into castes, with and without mixture of blood, 311-313; varieties of castes, 313-322; classification of caste, its difficulty for Census of 1901, 323, 324; social precedence adopted as a basis, 324; general results, 325, 326; contagion of caste among Muhammadans, 329; its absence from Baluchistan and Burma, 329, 330; origin of caste, 332-347; the Indian theory, 332, 333; creation of four original castes or groups, 332; caste system evolved from a subsequent series of complicated crosses, 332; modified by hypergamy (anuloma) and hypogamy (pratiloma), instances, 332, 333; historical elements of Indian theory, 333; confirmed by Dr. Fick’s studies of the structure of society in North-East India at the time of Buddha, 334; its probable origin in Iranian legend of four classes, 335; modified by racial antagonism in India, 335, and later developments, 336; Sir Denzil Ibbetson’s theory of evolution of caste, 337; Mr. Nesfield’s theory, 337, 338; M. Senart’s theory, 339-342; a caste normal development and arrestment of early Aryan institutions, 341; India never rose to idea of a State or a Fatherland, 341; contributing factors, 341; Greek and Roman parallels, 340-342; caste system absent from the Vedas, 342; caste not merely function or occupation, 342-344; castes not merely developed tribes, 344; exogamy of primitive tribes, 344; the actual genesis of caste from the widespread distinction of blood plus colour between higher and lower races in contact, 345; position of half-breeds everywhere, 345; caste a result of second and successive waves of Indo-Aryan invaders and of hypergamy, 345, 346, 357; principle of the facts of caste perpetuated and extended by a superstructure of fiction, 346; social or artificial distinctions tend to be thought genetic and natural, 347; caste instinct favoured by characteristics of Indian mind, 347; in agreement with doctrine of transmigration and karma, 347; Buddhism and caste, 408; Jainism and caste, 416; recognition of, by Catholic missions, 442; moral and physical effects of caste system, 501, 502, 507, 508, 520. See Brähmans, Hinduism.

Castes, varieties of: tribal, by conversion of tribes, examples of, 314; functional or occupational, examples of, 314, 315; sectarian, sects that have reverted to caste, the Lingāyat caste, 315, 316, 422, 423; castes, ancient and modern, formed by crossing, 317, 318; national, the Newāts in Neñāl, the Marāthāś, 318, 319; sectarian abjuration of caste usually a transient phase, 315, 316, 408, 423, 427; castes formed by migration or change of residence, Nambūdri Brāhmans of Malabar, Rāhi of Bengal, Barwaik sept of Rājputs in Chānda, 319–321; castes formed by neglect or changes of customs and ritual, the Kāyaṃsth, the Bābhans or Bhuinhārs, 321; the practice of widow remarriage, the Kurmis of Bihar and of the United Provinces, 322; classified in Census of 1901 on basis of social precedence, 324; seven main classes of Hindus in Bengal, 326–328; distribution of castes and tribes, 331, 332, 498. See Census Table XII.

Cat-bear or Himalayan Racoon, its distribution, haunts, and habits, 223.

Cauvery, the, a river of the Deccan, ‘The Ganges of the South,’ 45; its rise, course, ‘anicuts,’ and delta, 45, 46.

Census, difficulties of making and taking, 323, 324, 432, 471, 505, 510, 514, 517.

Census Tables, 489–499: I. General statement of number of towns, villages, and houses, with their population, male and female, in all India, 489; II. Variation in population, from 1872 to 1901, 489; III. Population distributed by Provinces and States, 490; III A. Bengal, Assam, and Central Provinces as reconstituted in 1905, 491; IV. Towns and villages classified by population, 491; V. Population of chief towns, 492; VI. Religious census, 493; VII. Age census, 493; VIII. Census of civil condition, 494; IX. Education census, 495; X. Census of language, 496; XI. Birthplace census, 497; XII. Statistics of main castes and tribes, and chief habitats, 498; XIII. Census of occupations and means of livelihood, 499.

Central India, 35, 36; physical and geological features and climate, 35, 36; date of wet monsoon, 124; delay of, 130, 132, 150; ethnology of, 296.

Central Provinces, the, physical aspects of, 36, 37; date of wet monsoon, 124; delay of wet monsoon, 130; rainfall, 141, 142; ethnology of, 296; population and density of, 453; varying rate of population since 1881, 464; decrease since 1891, due to famine, cholera, and malaria, 464; mortality greater among aborigines than among Hindus, 464; infantile mortality in 1900, 518; birth-rate, 506; death-rate, 512.

Ceylon, physical aspects of, 47–49; politically distinct, physically connected with the Peninsula, 47; a group of mountains with a broad fringe of plain, 47; its forests and jungles, 47; its remains of great Buddhist cities, 47, 48; its beautiful inland coast scenery, 48; its ports of Trincomalee, Colombo, and Point de Galle, 48; its rivers, 48; its roads, 48, 49; its plantations of tea, coffee, and cocoa, 49; geology of, 47; botany of Ceylon Region, 193–196; the Patanas, 195; relation of its Flora to Malabar and Coromandel types, 193; its stronger Malayan affinity, 194; the Maldive Archipelago, 196; Tamil, the vernacular of North Ceylon, 380; religion of, numbers more than two millions of Buddhists, 411; emigration to, of Tamil coolies from Madras, 468.

Chaitanya, a Brāhman preacher of the Kabirpanthis in Central Bengal and Orissa, 426; converted Buddhists and even Muhammadans, 426; did not confine post of Gosain or spiritual guide to Brāhmans, 426; the Sankirtan, or procession of worshippers playing and singing, 426; held up love of Rādhā for Krishna as highest form of devotion, 426; grosser developments of his teaching in the Vallabhāchārya sect, 426.

Châsi Kaibartta, sub-caste of fourth class in Bengal, 327; their Brâhmans degraded, 327; their social rise to third class, 328.

Cheetah or hunting leopard, 219.

Chenâb, the, an affluent of the Indus, 32; great recent development of irrigation from, 465.

Chitrâl, its Devonian fossils, 67.

Cholera, the conditions favourable to its outbreak and spread, 503, 504, 523, 534; general mortality from 1881 to 1890, 1891 to 1900, 521; in different Provinces, under normal conditions, 522; in famine areas, 522; among European troops, 526, 527; among native troops, 529, 530; in jails, 530, 531; cholera statistics of troops and prisoners in Bengal, the ‘home’ of the disease, 534.

‘Coppersmith’ bird, 247.

Chotā Nāgpur, its population mainly Dravidian, 296; the principal home of the Mundā languages, 383; botany of, 190–192, see Deccan; the Dravidian tribe, as found in, 308, 309; Kurukh, the vernacular of a Dravidian tribe in it and neighbouring parts of Central Provinces, 381; efforts of missionaries among its forest tribes, 443; its low population and density, 452; extensive emigration from, 467, 468.

Christianity, began with Syrian Church in Malabar, 441; a Nestorian Church under the Patriarch of Babylon, 441; embraces the Roman communion at Synod of Diamper, 441; later schism and origin of existing branches, 441; the Old Church, under Patriarch of Antioch, the New or Jacobites affiliated to Rome, 442; Catholic and Protestant missions, 442, 443; remarkable progress of, during the last thirty years, 445; its causes, religious, moral, social, and political, 445; the social promotion of the low-caste man who becomes a Christian, 445; the religion of 1 per cent. of the population, 471. See also Missions.

Christians, their sects, numbers, nationality, and distribution, 443, 444, 475, 476; their rapid growth in the last decade, 476; increase by 114 per cent. of native Christians, 476, 477.

Clarke, C. B., ‘On the Botanical Sub-areas of British India,’ 158 n., 165.

Classifications and tables other than statistical. See Tables and Classifications.

Coal, its formation in Upper Palaeozoic times, 51, 52; found in the Dâmuda series of Gondwāna system, 82; Rāniganj coalfield, 83; in Assam, 93. (Cf. also Vol. III, Mines and Minerals.)

Cobra. See Snakes (Colubridae), 271, 272.

Cochin, high density of population in one of its taluks, 454; botany of, see Malabar Region.

Cocos and Keeling Islets, botany of, 207.

Cold season: in January and February, pressure conditions in Asia and Indian Ocean, with graphic, 110; sketch of air movement, 111; storms of, phenomena of the upper current, 112, 113; weather in India during, 113, 114; rainfall and snowfall, 114; mean rainfall, 140.

Colour, of skin, eyes, hair, of different races, 283, 284; insufficient as a basis of ethnological division, 283, 284.

Coorgs, ethnology of, 293.

Coromandel Coast, the physical aspects of, 41, 193; its art culture and industry, 41; geology of: its highly fossiliferous rocks of Cretaceous period, 77, see Trichinopoly: botany of, 193.

Craniometry, inferior in ethnology to anthropometry, 284, 285; but confirmatory of its conclusions, 286.

Crocodiles: fresh-water and estuarial, the Ghariyal (‘Gavial’), 266, 267.

Cuckoos, parasitic and mimetic, the ‘brain-fever bird,’ the Koel, the Coucal or ‘crow-pheasant,’ 250, 251.

Cuddapah and Kurnool (geological) systems, 61, 62.

D

Deaf-mutism, statistics and distribution of, 485.

Death-rate, statistics of, 478, 479; a table of recorded death-rates in chief Provinces from 1881 to 1900, 512; years in that period of excess of deaths over births, 512; apparent progressive rise in high death-rates explained, 513; the influence of extraordinary causes, 513; contrast between Indian and English rates, 513; male and female death-rates, 516; infantile mortality, 517, 518; comparison of urban and rural mortality, 518; death-rate of European and native troops, 525-530; of prisoners, 530, 531.

Deccan, the: its physical aspects, 37, 42–46; its mountain ranges and elevated table-land, 37, 42; its ‘cotton’ soil, 43, 101; its forests, 43, 44; its rivers, 42; the course and ‘anicuts’ or dams of the Godāvari, 44, 45; of the Kisna, 45; of the Cauvery, 45, 46; their deltas, the granaries of the Peninsula, 42, 45, 46; moral and physical characteristics of SE. India, 46; geology of: the Deccan trap, its igneous origin, extent, depth, and composition, 2, 87, 88; probable date of its formation, 88; conceals ultra-basic rocks below, 88, 89; association of Cardita beaumonti with trap, 91; regar or black cotton soil of Deccan, 101; meteorology of, 114, 124, 133, 137, 142, 143, 145, 150; botany of Deccan Region, 189–193; subdivision of plateau, 190; of Deccan proper, 191–193; indigenous plants of ‘cotton’ soil, 192; population and density, 453.

Deer, their distribution and haunts, the ‘barking deer,’ the Kashmir stag, the swamp deer, the brow-antlered deer, the sâmbar or jarau, the spotted deer, the hog deer, the musk deer, the chevrotain or mouse deer, 235–237.

Deltas, of Irrawaddy and Salween, 21; of Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghnā, 25, 28; of Mahānādi, 26; of Godāvari, 45; of Kistna, 45; of Cauvery, 45; character of a deltaic river, 25–28; geology of, 94, 100, 101; botany of, 182–184, 198. See also Sundarbans.

Density of population : India as a whole, 450; in British territory, 450; in Native States, 450; a diagram of relative area and population of various British Provinces and chief Native States, 450; inequalities of density, 451; density generally varies with rainfall, 451; in Assam, 451, 452; in Bengal, 452; in the Presidency of Bombay, 452, 453; in Burma, 453; in Central Provinces, 453; in the Presidency of Madras, 453, 454; in the Punjab and North West Frontier Province, 454; in the United Provinces, 454; in the Native States, 454, 458; in Calcutta, 457; Bombay, 457; Madras, 458.

Dhārwārian system, the : rocks of, 60; rich in iron, copper, and gold, 60.

Dill, Professor, Roman Society in the Last Days of the Western Empire, quoted, 343, 344.

Dogs (wild), two species, differ in dentition from wolves and jackals, their distribution and habits, 221, 222.

Dolphin, the Gangetic, or süsü; of the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra and their tributaries, 238; blind, one of three surviving representatives of family of Platanistidae, 238.

Doms, Haris, Chamārs, Muchis, Pauris, castes of the seventh and lowest class in Bengal, 328.

Dravidian : the geological era, 64–67; the physical type, 296; the race, its physical marks, social rank, and distribution from Ceylon to valley of Ganges, pervading Madras, Hyderābād, the Central Provinces, most of Central India, Chotā Nagpūr, 296; of doubtful origin and affinities, 298; Huxley’s surmise of relation to Aborigines of Australia, 298; Sir W. W. Hunter’s theory, 298, 299; probably aboriginal or indigenous, 298; totemism among, 299, 308, 313; its Animism, 299; contributes coarser elements to worship of Siva, 420; two different families of languages spoken by the race, Dravidian proper and Mundā, 379.

Dravidian Languages, the, their main characteristics, 379, 380; contrast of Dravidian with Mundā, 378; spoken in South and Central India, Chotā Nāgpur, the Santal Parganas and (Brāhuī) in Baluchistan, 379; a classified list of vernaculars, 379; no recent progress in their study, 350.

Droughts, (and famine), 127, 145–146; areas liable to droughts, 141, 145; double droughts, 146; relation of droughts in India with droughts elsewhere, 126, 127; Mr. Blanford’s empirical forecast of drought by Himalayan rainfall, 129. See also Vol. III, ch. x.

Dry season, transition to, from wet, during October, November, and half of December, 131; the period of slowly retreating south-west monsoon currents, 132; changes of pressure, 132, 133; recurvature of Bay current, 133; rains, storms, and cyclones, 134, 135; pressure, weather, and rainfall, in different parts of India from October, 135–137; mean rainfall, 140.

E

Eagles, the golden eagle, the imperial, the spotted, the crested serpent, 253.

Earthquakes, 98; great earthquake of Assam in 1897, 98, 99; of Kangra in 1905, 98, 99; of Cutch in 1819, 99.

Education, statistics of, 483, 484; proportion of literates, who can read and write, to illiterates, in India, 1 to 10 of males, 1 to 144 of females, 483; in the Provinces, 483; highest in Burma, due to free education by the longyis or Buddhist monks, 483; proportion highest along and near sea-coast, 484; higher among Dravidians and Mongolians, 484; proportion among religious communities, 484; highest among Pārsis, 66 per cent., lowest among Animists, 1 per cent., 484; proportion of literates in English, 68 males and 7 females out of every 10,000 of each sex, 484; highest among Pārsis, lowest among Animists, 484. See Census Table IX, 495.

Elephants, wild and tamed, 230; a single species surviving of the eleven of Pliocene times, 97.

Emigration from India, statistics of, incomplete, 470; mainly of labourers and coolies to the British Colonies, including South Africa, Uganda, Mauritius, and British Guiana, 471, 472; conditions of coolie recruitment, 471.

Endogamy, tribal, 308, 309, 310; of caste-system, 287, 311, 317, 322, 334, 335, 348; of Muhammadans, 329; Greek, 340; Roman, 340; under later Roman Empire, 343, 344; part of the pride of race and colour everywhere, 345; probably later in time and thought than exogamy, the practice of primitive tribes, 344.

English Church in India, succeeded to Lutheran missions, 443; foundation of see of Calcutta, 443; Heber, second bishop, 443.

Enteric fever, dependent, like cholera, upon pollution of water-supply by first rains after drought, 524; death-rate from, among European troops, 527, 528; in Native army, 530; in jails, 531; relation of death-rate to age, 528; European troops—eighty-eight times more liable to this disease than native, 530.

Eranian (or Iranian) languages, 353–356.

Estuarial Flora, 182.

Ethnology and Caste, ch. vi, pp. 283-348.

A. The data of ethnology or science of racial divisions, 283-368; physical characters most trustworthy, 283; indefinite physical characters, colour of skin, 283; hair and eyes, 284; definite or anthropometric physical characters, 284; superiority of anthropometry, or measurements of the living, over craniometry, or measurements of skulls, 284, 285; anthropometry in India as part of Ethnographic Survey, 285; the data now available, 286, 287; the establishment of three main types, 286; this classification accepted by independent authorities in England, France, and Germany, 286; confirmed by craniometry, 286; conditions favourable to anthropometry in India, especially prohibition of mixed marriages by law of caste, 286, 288; measurement of head form, the cephalic index, 288; division of heads into broad, long, and medium, 288; value of cephalic index as a test of race, 288, 289; head-form in India, 289; measurement of the nose, the nasal index, 289; division of noses into narrow, broad, and medium, 289, 290; value of nasal index as a test of racial affinity, 290; the nasal index in India, 290; its correspondence with social groupings, 290; the orbito-nasal index, a test of Mongolian affinities, 291; division of faces into platypic, mesopic, and pro-optic, 291; stature, as an index of race, more significant in India than in Europe, 292; the seven main physical types in India (exclusive of Negritos), their characteristic and geographical distribution, 292-297; limitations of the type scheme, 297; (1) the Dravidian type, 298, 299; probably the oldest indigenous, 298; of doubtful origin and affinities, 298; Huxley’s surmise, 298; Sir W. Hunter’s theory, 298; (2) the Indo-Aryan type, its physical and social characteristics and distribution, 293, 299–303; its uniformity and its identity, in spite of social differences, 293, 299; its non-Indian origin, 300; the mode of its entry into India, 301–303; possibly by a series of tribal migrations from the north-west, first of men with their wives, under favourable climatic conditions no longer existing, 301, 302; probable decrease in modern times of rainfall and fertility in Central Asia and Persia, 301, 302; (3) Aryo-Dravidian or Hindustani type, 294, 303, 304; Dr. Hoernle’s theory of its origin from secondary migrations of men without their women, confirmed by Dr. Grierson’s Linguistic Survey, 303, 304, 358; (4) the Mongolo-Dravidian or Bengali type, 294, 304; (5) the Scytho-Dravidian type, 293, 304–308; historical record of Scythian invasions of India, 302, 306; possible origin of Scytho-Dravidian type, 306, 307; possible course of Scythians from Western Punjab southwards, to become ancestors of Marathas, 307, 308; (6) the Turko-Iranian type, 293; (7) the Mongoloid type, 295, 296.

B. Ethnography, the data of, or social divisions, 308–347; the Dravidian tribe, 308; the Mongoloid tribe, 309; the Turko-Iranian tribes; the Afghan type, 309; the Baloch and Brāhui type, 310; the word ‘caste,’ its derivation and implication, 311; definition of caste, 311; conversion of tribes into castes with and without mixture of blood, by absorption into old castes, 311; as a result of social ambition, 312; as a result of religious conversion, 312; by creation of new castes with adoption of ritual and customs, 312; by a gradual and insensible conversion to Hinduism with retention of tribal designation, 313; types of caste, 313–322; tribal castes, 314; functional or occupational castes, 314; sectarian castes, 315; castes formed by crossing, 316; the Shāgird’peshas, 317; national castes, 318; the Marāthās, 318; castes of degradation and promotion formed by change of residence, 319; the Nambūdri Brāhmans of Malabar, 319; the Rāhi Brāhmans of Bengal, the Barwaik in Chānda, 319, 320; castes formed by changes of custom, 321; totemism and totemistic exogamy, 322, 323; classification of castes, its difficulties for the Census, 323, 324; principles adopted in the 1901 Census, 324; by recognized social precedence, 324, 325; general results, 325; persistent influence of traditional system of four original castes, the water and sweetmeat test, range of pollution, 325, 326; the seven main classes of Hindus in Bengal, 326–328; (1) Brahmins of various status, 326; (2) Rajputs, Baidyas, Kayasths, 327; (3) Navasikha and other ‘clean’ Sudras, 327; (4) Châsi, Kaibartta, and Goala, 327; (5) whom the village barber will shave, 328; (6) whom the regular barber will not shave, 328; (7) eaters of all manner of unclean food, scavengers, &c., 328; opposition between Hinduism and Islam, 328; modified by contagion of caste in India, 329; exaltation of foreign descent in both, 329; Muhammadan practice of hypergamy and endogamy, 329; absence of caste system in Baluchistan and Burma, 329, 330; distribution of nearly 2,400 castes and tribes, see Ethnographic Map in Atlas, 15,000,000 Brahmans, 331; origin of caste, 332–347; the Indian theory of four original castes as contained in Institutes of Manu, 332, 333; its historic elements stated, 333, and confirmed by Dr. Fick’s studies, 334; its probable origin in the Iranian legend of four classes, 334, 335; modified by existence of racial antagonism in India, 335, and by later developments, 336; Sir Denzil Ibbetson’s theory of evolution of caste, 336, 337; M. Senart’s criticism, 337; Mr. Nesfield’s theory, 337, 338; M. Senart’s theory, 339–342; caste an extension of ancient Aryan family system, 340; early Greek and Roman parallels, 340, 341; explanation of later divergence in India, 341, 342; caste not merely community of occupation, 342, 344; not comparable with guilds of medieval Europe, 342, 343; caste tendencies under the later Roman Empire, 343; public functions made hereditary guilds with endogamy for men, 343, 344; did not survive Empire, 344; castes not merely developed tribes, 344; primitive tribes exogamous, 344; the genesis of caste, 345–347; from a basis of widespread fact, observed in India and elsewhere, 345; distinction of blood plus colour between higher and lower races in contact, 345; position of half-breeds, 345; caste a result of second and successive waves of Indo-Aryan invaders, and of hypergamy, 345, 346; superstructure of fiction, 346; social or artificial distinctions tend to be thought natural and genetic, 346; the caste instinct favoured by characteristics of Indian intellect, 347; in agreement with philosophic doctrine of transmigration and karma, 347; summary of conclusions, 347, 348; bibliography, 348.

Eurasians and Europeans, 477; their numbers, growth, and distribution, 477; apparent more rapid growth of Eurasian population explained, 477; two-fifths of Europeans born in India, 477; ten-elevenths of Europeans British subjects, 477; religions of Europeans and Eurasians, 477.

Exogamy, tribal, 308, 309; of caste system, 313, 317, 348; totemistic, 313, 322, 323, 344, 348; early Roman, 340; more primitive than endogamy, 344; its relations with the nasal index, 290.

F

Fauna, 213–282. See Zoology.

Ferns and their allies, 600 species, 161; in Sikkim, 167; in Indus plain, 178; of Sholas, 188; in Chotā Nāgpur, 192; in Ceylon, 196; in Burma, 197, 201; in Penang, 207.

Fevers. See Specific Fevers.

Fishes, 274-282. See Zoology.

Finches, 244, 245.

Flora, none peculiar to India, 158. See Botany.

Flora Indica, an introductory essay to, by J. D. Hooker and Thomas Thomson, 157, 165.

Flying Fox, 225.

Food: of the majority defective in protein, badly cooked, and insufficient, 501; sources of, equal to present growth of population, 461, 462.

Forests, 43, 44; of Burma, 197–199. See Vol. III, ch. ii.

Fossils, notable; Neobolus, 65; Redlichia, 65; Stenotheca, 65; Olenidae, 66; Halysites catenularia, 66; Phillipsia, 66; Fenestella, 66; Bryozoa, 66; Echinosphaerites, 67; Tentaculites, 67; Calceola sandalina, 67; Otoceras, Ophiceras, Meekoceras, 68; Richtofenia sinensis, 71; Oxytoma, 72; Nautilus peregrinus, 72; Fusulina, 72, 74; Schwagerina, 72; Lyttonia nobilis, 72; Xenodiscus (Xenaspis) carbonarius, 72; Bellerophon, 72; Ceratites, 73; Stephanites superbus, 73; Flemingites Flemingianus, 73; Koninckites volutus, 73; Prionolobus rotundatus, 73; Celtites, 73; Gangamopteris, 73, 84; Megalodon, 74; Athyris, Productus, Spiriferina, 74; of Trichinopoly area, 78; Inoceramus labiatus, 79; Pachydiscus peramplus, 79; Baculites, 79; Nautilus danicus, 80; Neiinea, 80; Megalosaurus, 79; Ceratodus, 84; Hyperodapedon, 84; Parasuchus, 84; Estheria, 84; Lepidodendron, Sigillaria, Calamites, 84; Glossopteris, 84, 85; Platacanthomys, 86; Titanosaurus indicus, 88; Nummulites, 88; Cardita beaumonti, 91; Velates Schmiedeliana, 95; Pelecypoda, Gastropoda, 95.

Foxes, five species of, 222.

Frogs and Toads: the jumping frog, Rana tigrina, the ‘Chunam frog’ of Madras, tree-frogs, 273, 274.

Function, community of, as basis and factor in evolution of caste, 311, 314, 315, 338; determination of, by birth, 332; not the sole basis, 342; misleading comparison with guilds of medieval Europe, 342; failure of common function to generate and maintain caste under later Roman Empire, 343. See also Occupations.

G

Gamble, J. S., his valuable help in the chapter on Botany, 157 n., 189 n.

Game birds: peafowl, pheasants, jungle-fowl, spur-fowls, quails, partridges, 256–258; plovers, snipes, and woodcock, 260, 261, 262; swans, geese, ducks, 265.

Ganges, the, geological division of, from Indus, 3, 22; influence of south-west monsoons upon climate of its basin, 22; its river system, 23–26; its sanctity, 23; the fertilizer and highway of Bengal, 22, 23, 24; its rise and course, 23; its length and volume, 23; its fall at Allahabad after confluence with Jumna, 24; through its delta, 25; life and growth on its banks, 24, 25; true delta formed by it and the Hooghly, 25; gathers and deposits silt, 25; stages in the life of the Ganges or any great Indian river as a land-maker, a land-breaker, a fertilizer, a rover, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32; junction of Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna, their combined delta of 500,000 square miles, 25, 28; extraordinary variety of crops and products, 25, 26; tributaries of Ganges, 23; the Jumna, its rise, tributaries, and independent course, 23, 24; changes of channel of Ganges from time to time, 26; Ganges as a factor in civilization of India and the world, 26; its great cities, 26; geology of its delta, 100.

Gangetic Plain, meteorology of, 3, 21, 111, 117, 122, 124, 130, 132, 141, 143, 451; has the greatest density of population, 451; botany of Gangetic plain Region, 179-186; of upper Gangetic plain, 180, 181; of Bengal proper, 181, 182; of Sundarbans, 182-184. See also Ganges.

Gautama, the Buddha, or ‘Enlightened one,’ born B.C. 596 of Kshattriya caste, in the Tarai, 407, 408; his early life of sensuous ease, his conversion to asceticism, his ‘Enlightenment’ and his Gospel of the Fourfold Truth and the Eightfold Path, 407; preached for forty-five years in Magadha, Bihar, and near Benares, and died B.C. 508, 407, 408.

Geography of India. See Physical Aspects.

Geology of India, chap. ii, pp. 50-103. I. Introduction, 50-57; Peninsular and extra-peninsular India, 50; the stable Peninsula, 50, 51; the folded extra-peninsular area, 52; correlation of Indian strata with the European scale, 51; variable rate of evolution in isolated land areas, 51; comparative uniformity of life in the ocean, 52; want of strict contemporaneity in geological formation, 52; use of local stratigraphical names, 52, 53; classification of Indian strata, 53; the datum line in stratigraphy, 53; the Olenellus zone, 53; Pre-Cambrian unfossiliferous rocks, 53; fossiliferous deposits, 53; four main groups of Indian rocks, 54; table of arrangement and chief divisions of these groups, 55; Archaean group, 54; Purana group, 54, 56; grouping of the fossiliferous strata, 56; the Upper Palaeozoic break, 56; Dravidian and Aryan groups, 56, 57; the Dravidian group in extra-peninsular India, 57; fresh-water deposits in the Aryan group, 57; marine deposits in the Aryan group, 57.

II. Pre-Cambrian history of India, 57–64; the Archaean and Purāna eras, 57, 58; the great Eparchaean break, 58; Archaean era, area of Archaean rocks, 58; origin and nature of the fundamental complex, 58, 59; orthogneisses and paragneisses, orthoschists and paraschists, mixed gneisses, 59; chief divisions of Archaean group, 59, 60; the Dharwārian system, 60; the Purāna era, distribution of the group, 61; lower and upper divisions of Purāna group, 61; the Cuddapah and Kurnool systems, 61, 62; Vindhyan system, 62; the Purāna group in Burma, 62, 63; possible existence of Purāna group in the Himālayas, 63, 64.

III. Cambrian and post-Cambrian history of India, 64–102; (a) the Dravidian era, 64–67; the Cambrian of the Salt Range, 64; purple sandstone and Neobolus beds, 64, 65; magnesian sandstone series and salt pseudomorph zone, 65; Palaeozoic of Central Himalayas, 65; the Vaikritas and Haimantas (Upper Cambrian) 65, 66; Gothlandian (Silurian), 66; conformable succession to the Carboniferous system, 66; Devonian of Chitral, 67; Infra-Trias of Hazara, 67; older Palaeozoic in Upper Burma, 67; (b) the Aryan era, 68-103; the Central Himalayan succession, 68; trespass of a former central ocean, 68; exotic blocks in Central Himalayas, 69, 70; Carbo-Trias of the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province, and Burma, 70; the Salt Range, 70; Permian boulder-bed, 70, 71; Speckled Sandstone series, 71; Productus Limestone series, 71; Lower, 71; Middle, 72; Upper, 72; gradual passage from Permian to Triassic, 72; the Ceratite formations, 73; Permo-Trias on northwestern frontier, 73; the Trias of Hazara, 74; Permo-carboniferous of Burma, 74; the Jurassic of Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province, 75; Jurassic of Cutch, 75, 76; Jurassic of Jaisalmer, 76; Jurassic of Salt Range, 76; relics of the great cenomanian transgression, 76, 77; Coromandel Cretaceous, 77; the Trichinopoly area, 77; table of four stages of strata with fossils, 78; the Utatur stage, 78; the Trichinopoly stage, 79; the Ariyalur stage, 79; the Ninniyur beds, 79, 80; Bagh beds, 80; the Gondwāna system, 80-87; boulder-beds in Gondwāna land, 81; age of the system, 81; distribution of the Gondwānas, 81, 82; the Talcher series, 82; Dāmuda series, 82; Barā-kar stage, 82, 83; Pānchet series, 83; Upper Gondwānas, 83; Rāmahāl and Mahādeva series, 83; marine beds of Upper Gondwāna age, 83, 84; the Kota-Māleri series, 84; characters of the Gondwāna fossil plants, 84; the Glossopteris flora of Gondwāna-land, 84, 85; existence of an old Indo-African continent, 85, 86; evidence from Jurassic fossils, 85; from the Cretaceous deposits, 85, 86; persistence of old continental ridge, 86; effects of the old continent on the modern distribution of animals, 86; the break-up of Gondwāna-land, 87; igneous outbursts at the end of Mesozoic times, 87; the Deccan trap, 87; the Lameta series, 88; age of the Deccan trap, 88; ultra-basic relatives of the Deccan trap, 89; Dunites of South India, 89; serpentines and jadeites in Burma, 89; igneous action in Baluchistan, 90; Tertiary gabbro and granophytes, 90; the Tertiary period, 90; the passage from Cretaceous to Tertiary, 90, 91; Cardita beaumonti beds, 91; Himalayan Tertiaries, 91; Sabāthu stage, 91; Dagshai stage, 91; Kasauli stage, 91; wide extent of Nummulitic stage, 92; Sind Tertiaries, 92; Tertiaries in Baluchistan, 92, 93; rock-salt in the Lower Tertiaries, 93; Lower Tertiaries in Kashmir, Ladakh, and Assam, 93; Miocene of Sind and Burma, 93; Tertiary records in Burma, 94; table of Tertiary formations in Burma, 95; Chin series, 95; Yenangyaung series, 96, 97; Siwalik series, 96, 97; Irrawaddy system, fossil wood, 97; Tipam sandstones of Assam, 97; Post-Tertiary development, 97; recent volcanic action, 98; earthquakes, 98, 99; recent rises and subsidences of the land, 99; Pleistocene alluvium in the Narbada and Godavari valleys, 99; Porbandar stone, 100; the Indo-Gangetic alluvium, 100; upland river deposits, 101; wind-blown deposits, 101; laterite, 101, 102; laterites of past ages, 102. Bibliography, 102, 103.

Ghāts (’landing stairs’), Western, mountain range along west coast, physical aspects of, 38, 39; the Borghāt, 39; the Thalghat, 39; the Pālghat, 40; geology of, 3, 39, 87; rainfall, 104, 123, 142, 144; influence of, upon meteorology, 112; botany of, see Malabar.

Ghāts, Eastern, along the east coast, physical aspects of, 41, 42; rivers of the Eastern Ghāts, 42, 43; geology of, 41; botany of, see Deccan.

Ghāts, Southern, divide Tinnevelly and Madura from Travancore, 46.

Goalā, sub-caste of fourth class in Bengal, 327.

Goats (wild), chiefly Himalayan, 233; the Asiatic ibex, 233; the Persian wild goat or Sind ibex, 233; the Mārkhor, the finest of wild goats, 233, 234; the Nilgiri wild goat or ibex of sportsmen, 234; goat antelopes, the Serow, the Gural, 234.

Godāvari, the, a principal river of the Deccan, its rise, course, affluents, ‘anicut,’ and delta, 44, 45; its valley, geology of: fossil remains of Ceratodus and other fish and reptiles, 84; Pleistocene alluvium, 100.

Gonds, the: a Dravidian tribe, in the ‘stone’ age, their home, 44; their debasement of the pure religion of the Satnāmis to their own level, 428; their language, of many dialects, unwritten and without a literature, 381.

Gondwana system, of sub-aerial and fresh-water deposits, 2, 80–87; from Carboniferous through Permian and Triassic times, 81; its distribution, 81–84; its division into Lower and Upper, 83, their subdivisions into Talcher, 82; Dāmuda, coal-bearing, 83; Pānchet, 83; Rāmahāl and Mahādeva, 83; Kota-Māleri, 84; character of its fossil plants, 84; the Glossopteris flora, its resemblance to fossil plants of similar formations in Australia, Africa, and South America, 84, 85; explained by an old Indo-African continent, 85; further evidence of its former existence, 85, 87; broken up in early Tertiary times, 87.

Goshawk, wild and tamed, 254.

Greek and Roman parallels to system of caste, 340, 341, 343, 344.

Gujarat, great variability of rainfall, 142, 145; botany of Southern, see Malabar; its language, Gujarati, a midland speech, with its own written character, and a flourishing literature, old and new, 368, 369; population and density, 452.

Guru Nānak, the founder of Sikhism, 426.

H

Haimantas of Upper Cambrian system, 65, 66.

Hanumāns or Langurs, monkeys, 216; renowned in legend and epic, 216, 418.

Hawks and hawking, 254.

Head, measurements of; the cephalic index, 288; division of, into broad or brachy-cephalic, long or dolicho-cephalic, medium or meso- or mesati-cephalic, 288; head-form in India, 289.

Herāt, its position and strategical importance, 14, 15.

Herons and Bitterns, 264.

Himalayas, physical aspects of, 15–19; comparison of Western with Eastern Himalayan ranges, 170, 171; deep troughs at back formed by Indus and Brahmaputra, 15; cleft by Sutlej and Gogra, 15; hill stations, 19; main passes, 18; the Siwāliks, 17; the Tarai, 17; geology of; upheaval of, 2, 3, 50, 87, 96; Purāna group, 63, 64; Palaeozoic of Central, 65; the Haimantas, 65, 66; Central Himalayan succession during Permian and Mesozoic eras, 68; trespass of a former central ocean, 68; exotic blocks, 69, 70; Himalayan Tertiaries, 91; the Siwālik and Sirmür series, 91; Nummulitic stage, 92; influence of, upon meteorology, 107, 108; meteorology of, 112, 123, 128; relation of snowfall to monsoon, 129; rainfall, 140, 143; botany of: Eastern Himalayan Region, Sikkim, 166–170; Western Himalayan Region, 171–176; Flora compared and contrasted with that of Eastern, 171, 172; tropical zone, 172; temperate zone, 173; alpine zone, 175; Tibetan valleys, 175, 176; zoology of Higher Himalayas, 214.

Hindī, laxī, used to denote rural dialects of Bihārī, and Eastern and Western Hindi, 364.

Hindi: Western: the modern vernacular of the old Midland, of the Gangetic Doab, and northwards, now and formerly the most important of all Indian languages, 365; its principal dialects, 366, 367.

Hindi: Eastern: meeting of languages of the Midland and Outer Band, 369; the language of Oudh, Baghelkhand, and Chhattisgarh in the Central Provinces, 369; in an early form the sacred language of Jainism, 369; in its present form the language of nearly all epic poetry of Hindustan, 370; its wide distribution, 370; its great and popular literature and its influence upon rustic speech, 370; high qualities of the language and literature of Eastern and Western Hindi, 367.

Hindostānī, the principal dialect of Western Hindi, a local vernacular and also a lingua franca of north and west continental India, 365, 366; spread from Delhi by the Mughal Empire, 365; Hindi Hindostānī, its artificial origin, 366; its popularity and general adoption (with Urdū) in Upper India for prose writing, 366; written in the Devanāgarī character, 366.

Hinduism, the present creed of the vast majority, 417; evolved from a reformed Brahmanism, 417; creation of a national ideal of worship, 419; due to religious influence of the epics, 419; the Mahābhārata, its religion and legends of heroes and heroines, 418, 419; the Rāmāyana, Rāma, and Sita models of holiness, 418, 419; Brāhmanism modified by non-Aryan forms of belief, 417; Siva, 419, 420; compared with Vishnu, 420, 421; the extension of Sivaism by Kumārila Bhatta and Sankarāchārya, 421; the Saiva sects, 421–423; the Smārtas, Brāhmans of Madras and S. Deccan, a sect of highest pantheism, 421, 422; the Lingayats, 422, 423; Vishnu, 423; his Avatāras or incarnations, 423; the gods of Vaishnavism, Krishna, 423; the god of the middle class, 424; Rāma, 424; the growth of Vaishnavism, 424; the Vaishnava reformers, 425; Kabir and Kabir-panthis, the link between Hinduism and Islam, 425; and inspirer of Sikhism, 425; the preacher, Chaitanya, 426; erotic Vaishnavism, 426; Sikhism, founded by Guru Nānak, 426; condemns polytheism, superstition, caste, and Brāhmanical supremacy, 426; its tendency to relapse into Hinduism, 427; the Saktas, 427; reformed sects of modern Vaishnavism, 427, 430; the Radhaswami, 427; sects founded on social revolt, 428; the Satnāmis, their fall from original creed, 428; modern theistic sects, 429; eclecticism of Hindu sectarianism, 430; the religion of 70 per cent. of the population, of 207 millions, 471; everywhere predominant, 472; yields to Buddhism in Burma, to Islam in NW. India and E. Bengal, to Animism in hills of Assam, 472; its losses and gains, 472; its teaching and customs as bearing upon moral and physical vigour, fertility, and sanitation, 472, 500, 501, 502, 507, 508, 520.

Hindu Kush, the, 10; ‘a highway of nations,’ 12; the parting point of Indo-Aryans from Iranians, 353.

Hippopotamus, bones of, in Narbada alluvium, 99.

Hoernle, Dr., his Grammar of Eastern Hindi, 349; his theory of origin of a double Aryan migration into India, 303, 304, 358.

Holarctic or Palaearctic (zoological) Region, 214.

Honey Guides (birds), 247.

Hot season, of March, April, and May, changes of pressure and air movements, 115, 116; storms of local causation, their distribution, 117; mean rainfall, 140.

Houses and house room, the different meanings attached in Census to the term ‘house,’ 458; either an enclosure, occupied by one family or several, or an enclosure the residence of a single commensal family, 459; average number of persons per house, high in Punjab and Kashmir (6), elsewhere very uniform, 458; overcrowding in, 504. See Census Table I.

Human sacrifice, among the Khonds, 321, 405; among the early Indo-Aryans, 405, 406; and even now to the goddess Kali, 406.

‘Humming-birds,’ so called, or sun-birds, 246.

Hyderābād (Nizam’s Dominions), ethnology of, 296.

Hyena, the striped, common throughout the Peninsula, its haunts and habits, 220.

Hypergamy or ‘marrying-up,’ a relaxation of caste system, 300, 312, 318, 319, 345, 348; of higher Muhammadans, 329; part of the Indian theory of the origin of caste, 332.

Ibbetson, Sir Denzil’s theory of the evolution of caste, 336, 337; M. Senart’s criticism, 337.

Ibex: the Asiatic, 233; ‘Sind ibex,’ 233; the Märkhor, 233, 234; the Nilgiri ibex, 234. See Goats (wild).

Ibises, 264.

Immigration into India increasing, 469; from Nepal, Afghanistan, China, Arabia, 469; from the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Africa, America, 469, 470.

India: origin of name, 4, 5; modern extension of term, 5; the variety of its physical features, climate, and stocks, 447; marked differences in its physical types, 448; in its social practices, dietary, and manner of living, 448, 449; its area and population, 449.

Indo-African continent, evidence of former existence of, 85, 86.

Indo-Aryan Type or Race, the original, 293; its distribution, 293; its social and physical characters, 299, 300; its comparative freedom from rigidity of caste, 300; marriage exclusiveness relaxed by hypergamy or ‘marrying-up,’ 300; its purity, 300; theories of its original seat, 300; its non-Indian origin, 300; its mode of entry into India, 301-303; originally with its women, 301, 302, 346, 402; finally without women, 303, 304, 346, 402, 418; its relations with indigenous Dravidians, 346; its languages, 357-378; a list of its vernaculars, 364; their homes, history, character, and literature, 364-378; its early religion, 402.

Indo-Chinese languages, 384–389; recent progress in our knowledge of, 349; divided into distinct families of Mon-Khmer and Tibeto-Chinese, 384; introduced by invaders, 384, 385; their general characteristics, 385, 386; monosyllables eked out by tones, 385, 386. See Appendix I, 390–394, List of the Indo-Chinese languages spoken in British India and Nepali.

Indo-European, often called Aryan, 352 n.

Indo-Gangetic depression, formation of, 3; description of, 22–34; its uniform regularity, 22; division of, into two basins of Indus and of Ganges, 22; influence of Himālayas upon meteorology of, 107; geology of, alluvial deposits, 100; meteorology of, 111, 123.

Indrāvati, an affluent of the Godāvari, 44.

Indus, the, geological division of, from the Ganges, 3, 22; climate and scenery of its plain, 28; absence of regular rainfall in monsoon, 29; its course and character, 14, 15, 29, 30; changes of channel and delta, 30; its affluents, the Kābul and Kohāt, 30; the Sutlej, 31; the Jhelum, 31, 32; the Chenāb, 32; the Rāvi, 32; the Beās, 32; botany of its delta, 179.

Indus Plain Region, botany of, 176–179; a selection of characteristic plants, 178; Rāwalpindi, 179; Sind, 179; Indus delta, 179.

Indus, Upper, valley of, zoology of, 214.

Infantile mortality, 517; about one-third of those born die within the first year of life, making 26 per cent. of total mortality, 517; a table of infantile mortality in the principal Provinces from 1891 to 1900, and in famine years, 517; the portentous rates for famine years, 518; the causes of the heavy mortality everywhere, 518.

Insanity, statistics of acute, one in every 4,000, and its distribution, 485.

Invasions and immigrations: of Indo-Aryan stock, 301; first wave, with women under climatic conditions no longer existing, 30, 300, 301, 302, 348, 402; secondary waves, without women, 303, 304, 345, 347, 348, 357, 358, 402, 418; of Scythians, 305-308; of Mongoloids, 295, 296; from NW. China down the river valleys to Burma and Assam, and up the Brahmaputra into Tibet, 384; in three successive waves, 385; the Muhammadan invasions and conquests of India, 433; their influence upon its religious history, 433, 434; indifference or toleration of Mughal emperors towards Hinduism, 434; and Catholicism, 442.

Iranian (or Eranian) Languages, 353–356; the Turko-Iranian type, 293; tribes, 309, 310.

Irrawaddy (geological) system, the, of folded Pliocene rocks, 94, 95.

Irrawaddy River, the, its rise, course, and affluents, 20, 21; its valley, 21; its delta, 21; meteorology of, 122; botany of, see Sundarbans.

Irrigation, in Afghanistan, 12; at Hardwār on Ganges, 23; from Ganges and Jumna, 24; its influence upon their volume, 24; dams or ‘anicuts’ of the Godavari, 45; of the Kistna, 45, 469; of the Cauvery, 45; renders crops independent of rainfall, 141, 451; great recent development of, from the Chenab, 465, 468; an incentive to internal migration, 468, 469.

Islam, opposition between, and Hinduism, 328; modified by contagion of caste, 329; its early contact with Hinduism, 433; sufferings of Brahmanism and Buddhism from Muslim invaders and raiders from the tenth to the sixteenth century, 433; general tolerance of the Muhammadan rulers, 434; Aurangzeb and Tipu Sultan exceptions to rule, 434; power and progress of Islam, 434; due to its own vitality rather than to conversion, 435; the regions of its strength, 434, 435; increase in Eastern Bengal, 435; the Musalman healthier, better fed, and more reproductive than the Hindu, 435; its democracy an attraction to low-caste men, 435; its debt to Animism and Hinduism, 435; its fusion with Animism in the Pachpiriyas, 435, 436; sects of Islam, 436–438; Sunnis and Shihs, 435; minor sects: the Wahabis, puritans and aggressive, 436, 437; Sufism, a combination of Aryan pantheism with Semitic monotheism, 437; the Ahmadiyas, the claim of their leader to be at once Mahdi and Messiah, 438; the Mophals, the Bohras, and the Khojas, 438; the revival of Islam in Northern India, cheap circulation of sacred books, and desire for education, Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh, 438. See also Muhammadanism.

J

Jackals, very widely distributed, their habits and cry, breed freely with dogs, 221.

Jacobābād, highest temperatures recorded at, 149.

Jagannāth, temple of, in Orissa, 26; one of the most sacred shrines of Hinduism, 26; its worship a coalition of Buddhist and Brāhman doctrines, 26.

Jainism, 414–417; its founder Vardhamana of the same country, class, and time as Buddha, 414; compared and contrasted with Buddhism, 414; the resemblance of their moral rules, 414; it lays greater stress upon asceticism, 414; the schism of the ‘white-clothed’ from ’those clothed with the sky,’ 414, 415; its former political influence and splendid temples, 415; the causes of its survival to the present day, 415; its vast literature only partially explored, 415; its pantheon, a body of deified saints, 415; the habits of its monks, and their extreme regard for animal life, 416; its sanctuaries and splendid temples, 416; its close resemblance to Hinduism, with more than its caste exclusiveness, 416; points of difference, 416; its boundless charity, 417; decreasing number of its adherents, 416, 417; its principal habitats, the cities and marts of Western India, 416, 473; its three sects, 417; its sacred language, an early form of Eastern Hindi, 369. See also Svetambara, Pinjrapols.

Jaipur, meteorology of, 126.

Jaisalmer, Jurassic of, 76.

Jāts or Jats, representatives of Indo-Aryan type, 293, 299; intermarriage with Rājputs, 301; practise widow remarriage, 322; in Baluchistan, 330.

Jesuit missions. See Missions.

Jews, very early settlers in India, 441; their colonies at Kolaba in Bombay, and Cochin on the Malabar coast, 441; their partial amalgamation with the native races, 441; recent increase not due to immigration, 441; their number, 493.

Jhelum, the river of vale of Kashmir, its course, 31, 32.

Jumna, the, 23; its rise and independent course, 24; its confluence with the Ganges, 24; the Prayāg, 24; its canals, 24.

K

Kabir, a Vaishnava reformer (1380-1420 A.D.), 425; a weaver by caste, taught the spiritual equality of all men, 425; difference in rank, caste, and religion, and the accidents of life are Māya, or illusion, 425; happiness comes by fervent faith (bhakti) and meditation on the Godhead, 425; a link between Islam and Hinduism, 425; the inspirer of Sikhism, 425; and founder of sect of Kabirpanthis, 425; now reverting to idolatry, 425; their later apostle, Chaitanya (1485-1527 A.D.), 426.

Kābul, physical aspects of, the river, 10–12; the province, 12, 13; the town, 13; the great high road from, to Kandahar, 13.

Kalā azār, epidemic fever of the Assam Valley, 462.

Kanara, botany of. See Malabar.

Kanarese, the Dravidian language of Mysore and neighbourhood, 380; its ancient literature and curved alphabet, 381; its preservation by Lingayats, 422.

Kanāwari, Limbū, and so-called Kirānti, important members of a group of ‘Pronominalized Himalayan languages,’ 386.

Kandahar, its physical aspects, 13; the great road from, to Kābul, 13.

Kāngra, great earthquake of, in 1905, 98, 99.

Kanishka, the Buddhist king, 411; his Great Council, 411.

Kankar, limestone of Indo-Gangetic alluvium, 100.

Karāchi, meteorology of, 126.

Karma (character and conduct), 341, 347, 407, 410.

Kashmir, physical aspects of hinterland and Vale, 14–16; the birthplace and feeder of five great rivers, possible seat of European colonization, 16; botany of, see Western Himālayas; ethnology of, 293; its original settlement by Pisāchas, early divergents from Aryan race, 355, 356; later invasion from the Punjab, 371; language of, Kāshmiri, Indo-Aryan Lahdā, with substratum of Eranian Pisācha, 356, 371; its extensive old literature, now barely intelligible to natives, 371.

Kāthiāwār, physical aspects of, 38; meteorology of, 123; delay of rainfall, 130; botanically divided between Sind and Konkan, 164; botany of southern, see Malabar.

Kaurava-Pândava war in the Mahābhārata, 418; supposed reference to contest between primary and secondary waves of Indo-Aryan migration, 303, 304, 345, 347, 348, 357, 358, 402, 418.

Kāyasth, the writer caste of Bengal, their traditional origin and claims, 294, 321, 327.

Keshub Chunder Sen, founder of the Nababidhan Samaj, or Church of the New Dispensation, 429.

Khāsi, the Mon-Khmer language of the hill country south of the Central Assam valley, 386; once rude and unwritten, now cultivated and given a literature by Welsh missionaries, 386; a vernacular recognized by the Calcutta University, 386.

Kherwāri, the most important family of the Mundā languages, 383; its several dialects, 383; much attention lately paid to Santāli and Mundāri, 383.

Khojas or Kwājas, a sect of Islam, 438; founded by Hasan Sabāh, a Shiah teacher of the eleventh century, known to Crusaders as the Old Man of the Mountain, 438; his present representative, the Agha Khān of Bombay, 438.

Khonds of Orissa, the gochis or exogamous septs of, 309; human sacrifices among, 321, 405.

Khyber Pass, the, from Kābul to Peshāwar, physical aspects of, 10; geology of, 75.

King, Sir G., his valuable help in the chapter on Botany, 157 n., 177 n.

Kingfishers, 248.

Kistna, the, a principal river of the Deccan, 45; its course, ‘anicut,’ and delta, 45; its great affluents, the Bhima and the Tungabhadra, 45.

Konkan, the, a narrow strip of coast between the Western Ghāts and the Arabian Sea, 38; its climate and vegetation, 38; meteorology of, 120, 123; rainfall, 142, 144; botany of, 186, 187; its language, Konkani, spoken from Damān to beyond Goa, between the Ghāts and the Arabian Sea, in the north of the Deccan, in Berār, in the NW. of the Nizam’s Dominions, in the south of the Central Provinces and in the State of Bastar, 373; an Outer language with three main dialects, Desi spoken round Poona and in N. and Central Konkan; Konkani in S. Konkan; and the dialect of Berār and the Central Provinces, 374; its L-participle, found from Assam to Arabian Sea, 373; its copious and popular literature, 373, 374; written in Devanāgarī, 374; spoken by more than eighteen millions, 364.

Marriage, its universality as a sacred obligation, 448, 449; comparative rate of, among females in England and India, 479; proportion of celibates and widows among men and women in England and India, 481, 485; ages at marriage vary with religion and locality, 481, 482; infant marriage, 482; prohibition of widow remarriage often discourages very early wedlock, 482; early marriages unusual amongst Muhammadans, Buddhists, and generally Animists, 482; the physical effects on the race of universal and early marriage, 500, 501; effect on the birth-rate, 507, 508. See also Exogamy, Endogamy, Hypergamy, Polyandry, Polygamy, Census Table VIII.

Mārwāri, a dialect of Rājasthānī, carried by trade all over India, 367; its copious literature and peculiar character, 368.

Mazdaism, the Pārsī religion, 439, 440.

Megalosaurus (M. Bucklandi), its occurrence in the Ariyalur stage of Coromandel Cretaceous, 79; its peculiar interest and significance, 79.

Meteorological Department in India, its initiation, development, present constitution, stations, and observatories, 105, 106.

Meteorology of India, ch. iii, pp. 104-156.

I. General meteorology of India proper with Burma and Baluchistan, 104-137; its singular interest due to (1) its variety and contrasts in respect of rainfall, 104, 105; (2) its combination of tropical and temperate region conditions, 105; (3) its covering an area of pronounced monsoon conditions, 105; initiation and development of meteorological observation and inquiry in India, 105, 106; present constitution of the Meteorological department, 106; India not an isolated meteorological area, 107; physiographic features of India, 107, 108; outside influences which affect meteorological conditions of India, 129; the alternation of seasons known as the monsoons the primary fact of Indian meteorology, 109; north-east or dry and south-west or wet monsoons, 110; subdivision of each monsoon into two periods, 110; pressure conditions in Asia and Indian Ocean during cold-weather period of dry monsoon, with graphic, 110, 111; sketch of air movement in India during cold-weather period, 111, 112; storms of the cold-weather period—phenomena of the upper current, 112, 113; weather in India during cold-weather period, 113, 114; precipitation of the cold-weather period, 114; meteorology of the second or hot half of the dry or north-east monsoon, 115; changes of pressure conditions and air movement accompanying local increase of temperature in Indian land area, 116; storms of the hot-weather period, 117; the wet season or south-west monsoon, 118; graphic of pressures, 119; extension of the south-east trades across the equator into the Indian sea and land areas, 119; cyclonic storms in Arabian Sea, 120; complete field of extension of the south-west monsoon currents, with graphic, 121; Bay of Bengal current, 122; Arabian Sea current, 123; monsoon trough of low pressure, 124; date of establishment of wet monsoon in different parts of India, 124; pulsatory character of the rainfall of the period, 124; cyclonic storms of the rainy season in the Bay of Bengal, 125; normal rainfall, May to October, 126; humidity and temperature conditions during the south-west monsoon, 126; variations of the strength of the southwest monsoon currents related to corresponding variations in the south-east trades of the Indian Ocean, 127; rainfall in Western India and Abyssinia appears to vary similarly, while rainfall in North-Western India and Burma varies inversely, 127; table of variations, 128; variations in local extension of monsoon currents caused by pressure anomalies, 127, 128; influence of snowfall in Himalayas on the rainfall, 129; peculiar character of rainfall as a discontinuous phenomenon, 129; important variations of monsoon rains from normal, 130; chart of normal rainfall in the plains, June to September, 131; the recreating south-west monsoon period, 131; gradual withdrawal of the monsoon currents from the Indian area, 132; pressure changes in Indian area, 132, 133; recurvature of the Bay current in October and November towards the west, rains in Madras, 133; probable conditions of retreat of monsoon current in the Arabian Sea, 134; storms of the period, 134, 135; further pressure and temperature changes in India during period, 135; this season really a transitional period of considerable duration, 136; precipitation of period, 136; summary of more important abnormal features of weather and rainfall distribution of period, 137.

II. Special remarks on rainfall and droughts, 138–146; aqueous vapour, 138; rate of cooling of ascending air, 138; ascensional or convective air movement the chief cause of rainfall, 138; ascensional movement largely due to diurnal heating by solar action, 138; ascensional movement of humid current forced up and across a line of hills, 139; ascensional movement in cyclonic storms, 139; ascensional movement due to resistance to horizontal movement at the earth’s surface, 139; distribution of rainfall by season in India, 140, and Appendix A, 153; cold-weather rainfall, 140; due to storms, 140; hot-weather rainfall, 141; rainfall of the wet or south-west monsoon, 141, 142; action of forced ascent of aqueous vapour, 142, 143; of cyclonic storms, 143; examples of excessive downpours in twenty-four hours during the wet monsoon, 143, 144; variability of rainfall, 144, 145; deficient rainfall and droughts, 145, 146; table of larger areas liable to droughts, 145; double droughts, 146.

III. Special remarks on Indian temperatures, 146–152; measurement of air temperature, 146; variation of ground surface temperature and effect on air movement, 147; variation of air temperature, 147; diurnal variation of air temperature, 148; diurnal range, 149; annual variation of air temperature, 148, 149; maximum diurnal temperatures, 149; minimum diurnal temperatures, 149; mean diurnal temperatures, 150, and Appendix B, 154; hill temperatures, 150–152, and Appendix C, 155. Appendices: A. Rainfall data of twenty-one meteorological divisions of India, 153; B. Average mean temperature at twenty-three representative stations in the plains, 154; C. Average mean temperature at twelve representative hill stations, 155. Bibliography, 156.

‘Midland, the,’ or Madhyadesa, its extent and relation of its language to Sanskrit, 357, 359; its inhabitants represent latest Indo-Aryan immigration, 358; their extension and conquests, 358, 359; the present distribution of the Midland language, 359, 492.

Migration: internal, slight, 467, 468 (see Table XI, p. 497); exceptions, to Assam from Chotā Nagpur and its neighbourhood, 467; to Bengal from United Provinces, 467; to Burma from Madras and Chittagong, 467, 468; to Ceylon from Madras, 468; its chief incentives, trade, industry, irrigation works, harvest, 468, 469.

Miscegenation, origin of castes from, 317, 318, 332. See Endogamy, Exogamy, Hypergamy.

Mishimi Hills, Flora of, by Griffith, 166 n.

Missions, Christian: of Franciscans from Portugal, 442; the labours of St. Francis Xavier in S. Madras and the Malabar coast (1542-52), 442; his death in China and burial in the Church of Bom Jesus at Goa, 442; the conciliatory and popular system of his followers, 442; their recognition of caste, 442; the Jesuits, in 1606, at Madura, 442; impeded by European hostility against the Order, 442; and by persecution, especially by Tipu Sultan, 442; permitted by Akbar in N. India, 442; Protestant missions—of Lutherans in 1705 at Tranquebar, 442; under Swartz at Timnevelly, 443; of Baptists under Carey in 1790 at Serampore, 443; of English Church, has succeeded to most of the Lutheran missions, 443; foundation of see of Calcutta in 1814 after labours of Henry Martyn, 443; Heber, the second Bishop, 443; of Church of Scotland, under Dr. Duff, one of the pioneers of higher education, 443; of American Methodist Church, 444; of Salvation Army, 444.

Mongolo-Dravidian or Bengali Type or Race, the, its distribution, social and physical characteristics, 294, 304; bounded by Himālayas, Assam, Orissa, Chotā Nāgpur, and Western Bengal, 294.

Mongoloid Type or Race, the, its distribution in the Himālayas, Nepal, Assam, and Burma, and physical characteristics, 295, 296; tribe, 309.

Monkeys, varieties and habits of, wild and tamed, 214–217; Langurs or Hanumāns, 216.

Mon-Khmer Languages, the, of the earliest Chinese invaders, 384, 385; their relation to Mundā, 382, 386; of four in British India, Khāsi and Mon (of Pegu) important, 386.

Monsoons, the, 109–137; primary fact in meteorology of India, 109; due to periodic differences of temperature and pressure, 109, 110; north-east or dry monsoon, 110; south-west or wet monsoon, 110; subdivision of each monsoon according to months and characteristics, 110; dry monsoon, 110-118; wet monsoon, 118-137; the most important season in India, 119, 141; date of its establishment in various parts, 124; correspondence with south-east trades of Indian Ocean, 126, 127; second half of or retreating south-west monsoon, 131-137. See also Rainfall.

Moplas, a fanatical sect of Islam found in Malabar, 438.

Muhammadanism, in southern and western Punjab, 434; in Kashmir, 434; in Oudh and the United Provinces, 435; in Eastern Bengal, 435; the Muhammadan generally a dweller in cities, 435; its attitude as invader and conqueror towards Hinduism and Buddhism, 433, 434, 475; and Catholicism, 442; the religion of 21 per cent. of the population, 471; its numbers and regional distribution, 474; proportionately strongest in Kashmir, 474; explanation of its prevalence in Bengal, 474, 475; its rapid numerical growth, 475; explained by physical and social conditions, 434, 435, 475; comparison of Hindu and Muhammadan birth-rate, 510; death-rate, 520, 521. See also Islam.

Mulla Ghulam Ahmad, the leader of the Ahmadiyas, 438.

Mundā Languages, recent attention to, 349, 383, 384; often called ‘Kolarian,’ 382; probably the oldest and aboriginal, 382; relations with remote languages, suggestive of an old common language of India, 382, 386, 387; their agglutinative and other characteristics, 382, 383; their home in and around Chotā Nāgpur, 383; a list of them, with number of speakers, 383; Kherwāri, the most important, 383; have neither literature nor proper written character, 384.

Mungoose, found throughout India and Ceylon, 220.

Murrell fish, directly oxygenated from air, can exist in dried mud and recover in wet monsoon, 281. See also Perch, the Climbing.

‘Musk Rat’ or Grey Musk Shrew, its smell, haunts, and habits, 225; possibly a commensal of man, 225.

N

Nāgā group of Tibeto-Burman languages, 387.

Nāgā Hills, most easterly offshoot of the Himālayas, Mongoloid tribe in, divided into khel, exogamous and independent septs, 309.

Nāgās, a semi-divine snake race in the Mahābhārata, 418; name of a prehistoric people, powerful in N. India, 418.

Nāgpur, meteorology of, 126.

Naipali, the language of the ruling classes only of Nepal, a dialect of Rajasthanī, 368.

Narbada, the river, 36, 37; next in sanctity to the Ganges, 37; its course through the Central Provinces, 37; its estuary, 37; geology of its valley: Bagh beds of Cretaceous period, 80; Pleistocene alluvium, 99.

Native States, population and density in, 454, 455.

Navasakha, functional castes of third class in Bengal, 327.

Neobolus beds of Cambrian system, 64, 65.

Nesfield’s, Mr., Brief View of the Caste System of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, quoted, 286; his theory that caste is based upon function, the evolution of industrial crafts, and priestly pride, 337, 338; his theory of the unity of the Indian race criticized by the data of anthropometry, 286.

Newāri, the main language of Nepal, 386; one of a group of ‘Non-pronominalized Himalayan languages,’ 386.

Nicobar Islands, botany of, 204, 205.

Nicobarese language, akin to Malay with a substratum of Mundā, 389.

Nile floods, relations of, with Indian rainfall, with table, 127, 128.

Nilgiri, physical aspects of, 40; climate and vegetation, 40, 187; meteorology of, 114, 143; botany of, 187, 188; the Sholas, 188; resemblance to Flora of cool hill regions of N. Burma, 188; exotic plantations in, 189; dialects of, 381.

Nirvana, the Buddhist doctrine of, 410; implies extinction, 414; the Jain doctrine implies escape from the body, not from existence, 414.

Northern India, meteorology of, 111, 113, 124, 125, 130, 131, 135; rainfall, 140, 141; highest day temperatures, 149; classification of castes in, 325.

North-West Frontier Province, geology of, Carbo-Trias, 70; Permo-Trias, 73; Jurassic, 75; population and density in, 454; growth of population, 465.

North-West India, meteorology of, 113, 130, 133; rainfall variations, 128.

Nose, measurement of, the nasal index, 289; noses divided into narrow or fine, medium, and broad, 289, 290; the nasal index in India, 290; its correspondence with social groupings, 290, 448.

Nummulitic (geological) stage, its wide distribution, 92.

O

Occupations, statistics of, 486, 487; see Table XIII (p. 499); limitations of census returns, 486; two-thirds of whole population agricultural, 486; occupations of rest, 487; caste heredity in occupations, 487; its recent disintegration, 487; by the opening of all employments to all, 487; by education, by improved communications, by wider choice in new avenues of employment, 487, 488; occupations common to men and women, 488; peculiar to women, 488. See also Function.

Orbito-nasal index, the, a test of Mongolian affinities, 291; faces divided into platy-opic, mesopic, pro-opic, 291.

Orchids, the largest order of flowering plants in India, 161; its numerous species, 162; in Sikkim, 167, 168; less prominent in Western Himalayas, 171, 172; in Indus plain, 178; in Bengal proper, 182; in Sundarbans, 184; in Malabar Region, 187; of Nilgiri Sholas, 188; in Singhbhum, 191; in Ceylon, 195; in Burma, 198, 201, 203; in Malayan Peninsula, 205.

‘Oriental,’ different meanings of the term in botany and zoology, 158 n.

Orissa, physical aspects of, 26; meteorology of, 120, 124; ethnology of, 294; its language Oriyā, 376; botany of, see Gangetic Plain.

Oriyā, the language of Orissa and of adjoining parts of Madras and the Central Provinces, 376; isolated and little changed, 376; its considerable literature, 376; the characteristic curves of its writing, 376.

Ormuri, the Iranian language, akin to Pashto, of a small tribe round Kānigoram, 355; its characteristics, 355.

‘Outer Band,’ the, languages of, 358; represent the earliest immigration of Indo-Aryans, 358; their country and expansion, 358, 359; the present distribution of the Outer languages, 359, 402.

P

Pachpiriyas, the, of Bengal and United Provinces, 435, 436; worship the five saints, Pānch Pīr, 435; their names and history a compound of Muslim hagiology grafted on Animism, 436; their shrine five small clay mounds in a corner of the house, or under the holy village tree, 436.

Pahari, ’the language of the Hills,’ an offshoot of Rajasthani, imposed by conquering Rāṇut upon inhabitants of Himālayas from Chamba to Nepāli, 368; modified by (unknown) native speech, 368.

Pālghāt Gap or Pass, 4, 40, 187.

Pali, a secondary Prākrit speech, crystallized by sacred books of Buddhism, 360.

Palms, few indigenous, 160; number of species, 162; in Sikkim, 167; in Western Himālayan Region, 172; in Indus plain, 177; in Bengal proper, 181; in Sundarbans, 182; in Malabar Region, 187; in Ceylon, 195; in Burma, 199; in Malayan Peninsula, 206.

Panjābī, the vernacular of Central Punjab, and of the Sikhs, 369; a mixture of Outer Lahndā with Midland, 369; the purest and most arcadian of the Midland speeches, 369; its illegible written character, 369.

Parrots, 251.

Pārsis, 439, 440; the Pārsi emigration to India, under pressure of Islam, 439, 440; their settlement at Sanjān, 440; their relations with the Mughal court and Akbar, 440; their spread from Bombay as a commercial centre, 440; their faith submerged in Hinduism, 440; its recent emergence, and patriotic revival of the sacred language and books, 440; their factions, Kadimi and Shenshāi, 440; their dualism and eschatology, 440; their reverence of fire, water, sun, moon, and stars, 440; the exposure of the dead on the Towers of Silence, 440; Bombay and Baroda their principal seats, 440; their numbers, 440.

Passes of the Himālayas, the Shipki group by the Sutlej to Tibet, 18; the Almorā group by the Gogra river to Tibet, 18; the passes from Darjeeling to Southern Tibet and Lhāsa, 18.

Pat desert in Upper Sind and adjacent tracts, hottest area in India, 149.

Pathān Frontier, its physical aspects, 10, 11; buffer-land between Afghanistan and British India, 10; its chief passes, 10; its language, 354; its tribes, 355.

Pathāns or speakers of the Pashto language, 9, 354; Afghan type of tribe among, 309.

Peat, of Nepāl, 101; of Nilgiri and Anamalai Hills, 189 and n.; rarity of bog-land in the Himālayas, 159.

Penang Islet, botany of, the vast number of its species, 207.

Peninsula, the geology of, 50, 51; meteorology of, 112, 114, 123; botany of, compared with Burmese, 185; zoology of, 214. See also Deccan, Malabar, and Coromandel.

Perch, the Climbing, can exist without water, 281. See also Murrell.

Peshawar valley, the, its physical aspects, 28, 29.

Phthisis, high death-rate from, in Bombay, 520; due to overcrowding and a low standard of domestic hygiene, 504, 520; death-rate from, in European army, 526, 527; in Native army, 529, 530; in jails, 530; comparison of mortality from, between European and Native troops and prisoners, 533.

Physical aspects of India, chap. 1, pp. 1-49; their extreme variety, 1; geological evolution, 1-4, 38, 39; origin of name of India and modern extension of term, 4, 5; land approaches and gateways of India, 5, 6; borderlands of India, 6-22; Baluchistan, southern, 6, 7; northern, 8, 9; the Pathan frontier, 10, 11; Afghanistan, 11-14; Kashmir, hinterland, 14, 15; Vale, 15, 16; the Himālayas, 15-19; the Siwaliks, 17; the Tarai, 17; main passes, 18; hill stations, 19; north-eastern borderland, 19; Brahmaputra river and valley, 19, 20, 27, 28; Burma, Upper and Lower, 20, 21; essential importance to India of its borderlands, 21, 22; Indo-Gangetic depression, 22-34; its uniform regularity, 22; Eastern Gangetic basin, 22-28; influenced by south-west monsoon rains, 22; its fertility and agricultural wealth, 22, 23; Gangetic river system, 23-26; the Ganges, its sanctity, 23; its rise and decrease, 23; utilized for irrigation first at Hardwar, 23; its volume, 23; its fall at Allahabad, 24; through its delta, 25; life and growth on its banks, 24, 25; reaches its true delta and deposits silt, 25; character of a deltaic river, 25-28; junction of Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna, their combined delta, 25, 28; size of Bengal delta, 25; extraordinary variety of its crops and products, 25, 26; great tributaries of Ganges, the Jumma, its rise, tributaries, and independent course, 23, 24; volume of Ganges and Jumma much reduced by irrigation during hot weather, 24; changes of channel from time to time, 26; Ganges as a factor in civilization in India and the world, 26; basin and delta of the Mahānadī, 26; Assam, valley of, 27; compared with Bengal and Burma, 27; narrowed vista and area of cultivation, 27; its teagardens, 27; its clearings, 27; its more wholesome atmosphere, 27; its enormous wastes, 27; the impenetrable jungles of the Dharats, 27; the Brahmaputra, its origin as Tsan-po in the Kailās watershed, 27; course north of the Himālayas, 27; enters British territory as Dihang, 27; after confluence with Dibang and Luhit, known as the Brahmaputra, 27; in Assam and Bengal, 27, 28; by its deposit of silt a landmaker, a land-breaker, a fertilizer, a rover, 27, 28; utilized for crops and trade, 28; not utilized for irrigation, 28; basin of the Indus and its affluents, 28; its climate, 29; the Indus river, 29; its course, changes of channel and delta, 30; its affluents, the Sutlej, 31; the Jhelum, 31, 32; the Chenab, 32; the Ravi, 32; the Beas, 32; the Punjab plain, 33; the Indian desert, 33; the Aravallis, 1, 33; dividing northern from southern Rajputana, 34; the Rann of Cutch and peninsula of Kathiwar, 38; the Vindhya Hills, 35; Central India, 35; the Central Provinces, 36; the Narbada and Taptī rivers, 36, 37; Southern India, 37-47; the Western Ghats, 39; the Borghat, 39; the Thalhat, 39; the Konkan and Malabar, 40; the Nilgiris, their climate and vegetation, 40; the Pālghāt Gap, 40; the Anamalai hills, 40, 41; the Coromandel Coast, 41; the Eastern Ghats, 41, 42; the Deccan, 42-6; its ‘cotton’ soil, 43; its forests, 43, 44; the course and ‘anicuts’ or dams of the Godavari, 44, 45; the Kistna, 45; the Cauvery, 45, 46; their deltas, the granaries of the Peninsula, 42, 45, 49; the physical and moral characteristics of South-Eastern India, 46; Tinnevelly and Madura, 46; Travancore, 46, 47; Ceylon, 47-49.

Physical characters, the most trustworthy data of ethnology, 283; indefinite or secondary, of skin, eyes, hair, face, and features, 283, 284; definite or anthropometric, 284–292; consequent division of people of Indian Empire into seven main physical types, 292–296; limitations of the type scheme, 297; its general acceptance in England and the Continent, 286.

Physiography of India, main outlines in connexion with meteorology, 107, 108; direct origin of lower air movements not from Central Asia, 108.

Pigeons and Doves, 255.

Pigs, wild, 237; distribution, haunts, and habits, 237; the Wild Boar, the Pigmy Hog, ‘pig-sticking,’ 237.

Pinjrapols, animal hospitals in which even vermin are protected and fed, 414.

Pisacha languages and tribes, now found only between the Hindu Kush and the Punjab, once more widely distributed, 355, 356; between Eranian and Indo-Aryan; their archaic character, their dialects, 356.

Plague, mortality from, 555. See Vol. IV, chap. xiv.

Plovers, Snipes, and Woodcocks, 260–262.

Polyandry, of Draupadi, the wife of the five Pândava brethren in the Mahābhārata, 419, 424; of Central and Western Punjab and of modern Jāts and Santāls, 372; two types of, 483; matriarchal, of simultaneous alliance with two or more men not necessarily related, with succession through the female, 483; once, not now, prevalent on the Malabar coast, 483; fraternal, of marriage with several brothers, 483; still prevalent along Himālayas from Kashmir to Assam, and among the Todas, and elsewhere, 424, 483.

Polygamy, rare in India, 482; excess of wives per thousand, thirty-one among Animists, twenty-one among Muhammadans, eight among Hindus, seven among Buddhists, 482, 483; among Christians an excess of husbands, 483.

Pomfrets, the ‘silver,’ the ‘gray,’ the white, 280.

Poona, dry and liable to droughts, 142; Desi, a dialect of Marāthī, the language of the District, 374.

Population, chap. ix, pp. 447–488; general characteristics of Indian as compared with Western peoples, 447–449; area and population of India, 449; diagram of relative area and population of the various Provinces and chief Native States, 450; density of population, 451; in Bengal, 452; in Bombay, 452; in Burma, 453; in Central Provinces, 453; in Madras, 453; in Punjab and NW. Frontier Province, 454; in United Provinces, 454; in Native States, 454; towns and villages, how distinguished for Census of 1901, 455; recent growth of towns, 456; Calcutta, 457; Bombay, 457; Madras, 458; houses and house room, definition of ‘house,’ 458; growth of population since 1867, 459; conditions affecting growth of population, 1891–1901, capacity of India to support a greater population, 461; details of progress of population for principal Provinces, 462–467; Assam, 462; Bengal, 462; Bombay, 463; Burma, 463; Central Provinces, 464; Madras, 464; Punjab and NW. Frontier Province, 465; United Provinces, 465; Native States, 466; migration: (a) internal, 467–469; (b) external, 469; emigration, 470, 471; religious census, 471–477; Hindus, 471; Animists, 472; Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains, 473; the Brahmo and Arya Samaj, 473; Musalmans, 474; their increase, 475; Christians, 475; their growth, 476; statistics of Europeans and Eurasians, 477; of age, 478; of sex, 479, 480; of marriage, 481–483; variations in marriage customs by religion and locality, 481, 482; polygamy, 482; polyandry, 483; education: division into literate and illiterate, 483, 484; statistics of insanity, deaf-mutism, blindness, and leprosy, 485; of occupations, 486; influence of heredity on function growing weaker, 487; opening of new avenues of employment, 488; proportion of workers to dependents, 488, among men and women, 488; avocations favoured by women, 488. Tables of Population: I. General statement, 489; II. Variation in population, 490; III. Population distributed by Provinces and States, 490; III. A. Bengal, Assam, and the Central Provinces as reconstituted in 1905, 491; IV. Towns and villages classified by population, 491; V. Population of chief towns, 492; VI. Religion, 493; VII. Age, 493; VIII. Civil condition, 494; IX. Education, 495; X. Language, 496; XI. Birth-place, 497; XII. Statistics of main castes or tribes, 498; XIII. Occupation or means of livelihood, 499.

Population, growth of, 459; its causes and checks, 448, 449; variations in, since 1881, 489; often cyclical, 460; conditions affecting it between 1891 and 1901, droughts, two famines, high mortality, low birth-rate, 460, 461; epidemic of plague, 461; counteracting conditions, 461; growth not in excess of possible means of subsistence, 461, 462; in Assam, 462; in Bengal, 462, 463; in Bombay, 463; in Burma, 463, 464; in Central Provinces, 464; in Madras, 464, 465; in Punjab and NW. Frontier Province, 465; in United Provinces, 465, 466; in Native States, 466, 467. See also Census.

Porbandar stone, 100.

Porpoise, blunt-nosed, peculiar to the Irrawaddy, 238.

Post-Tertiary (geological) development, 97; by recent volcanic action, 98; by earthquakes, 98, 99; by recent rises and subsidences of land, 99; pleistocene alluvium in Narbada and Godavari valleys, 99, 100; Porbandar stone, 100; Indo-Gangetic alluvium, 100; upland river deposits, 101; wind-blown deposits, 101.

P. rain, Major: Plants of Bengal, enumeration of six areas of comparative humidity or dryness, 164; Flora of the Sundarbans, 183 n., 184; recent discoveries of plants in Chotā Nāgpur, 191; on Flora of N. Burma, 199 n.; on flora of E. Burma, 201; on flora of the Andamans, 204.

Prākrit or vernacular dialects, the, 359–362; primary, secondary, and tertiary, 360, 361; Pāli and Buddhism, 360; grouping of Prākrit dialects, 360, 361; their literary culture and distinction from the Apabhraṃsas or true vernaculars, 361; succession of Sanskrit, Pāli, Prākrit, Apabhraṃsa, 362; the last the parent of modern vernaculars, 362.

Pre-Cambrian (geological) Age, of unfossiliferous rocks, 57–64; divided into the Archaean, 58–60; and the Purana groups, 61–64.

Protestant missions. See Missions.

Public Health and Vital Statistics, ch. x, pp. 500-535; introductory, 500; conditions affecting the individual, 500-502; endogamy and early marriage, 500, 501; defective nutrition and poverty, 501; the environment, religious, moral, and social, 501, 502; fatalism and caste, 501, 502; physical environment: influence of rainfall, 502, 503; influence of temperature, 504; man’s subordination to environment, 504; vital statistics: the causes of their defective character, 505; birth-rate in India, 506; how affected by marriage customs, 507; table of percentage distribution of the population by civil condition in India and Europe, excluding Hungary, 508; how affected by agricultural distress or prosperity, 508; how by normal seasonal variations, 509; comparison of Hindu and Muhammadan fecundity, 510; proportion of male and female births, with table, 510; urban and rural birth-rates, 511; proportion of stillbirths, 511; recorded death-rates, with table, 512; causes which affect them, 513; strong contrast between Indian and English birth- and death-rates, 513; age statistics for India and England, with table, 514; mortality and expectation of life at different ages, with table, 514, 515; contrasted with England, 515; male and female deaths, 516; infantile mortality, 517, 518, its causes, 518; comparison of urban and rural mortality, with table, 518, 519; overcrowding in cities, 519, especially in Bombay, 520; Hindu and Muhammadan mortality, and Eurasian, 520, 521; causes of mortality as registered, with tables, 521, 522; under normal conditions, 522, in famine areas, 522; three main classes of fatal disease, 523; specific fevers, abdominal diseases, lung diseases, 523; their association with a deficient supply of food and insanitary habits and surroundings, 523; epidemics, the conditions that favour their rise and mortality, 524; the decrease of the mortality from small-pox, the increase in vaccination, with table, 524, 525; the epidemic of plague, the mortality from, in different districts and in the cities of Bombay and Calcutta, 525; see also Vol. IV, ch. xiv; vital statistics of troops and prisoners, 525–534; both under daily medical observation for many years, 525, 526; (a) European army: table of mortality from 1770 to 1856, 526; table of causes of death from 1812 to 1852, 526; table of sickness and mortality from 1870 to 1889 and 1895 to 1900, 527; table of sickness and mortality by age and length of service among European troops from 1895 to 1899, 528; the mortality among officers, 528; among women and children, 528, 529; (b) Native army: table of disease and mortality from 1833 to 1853, 529; table of sickness and mortality from 1895 to 1900, 530; (c) prisoners: tables of sickness and mortality from 1833 to 1853, 530; table of sickness and mortality among prisoners from 1881 to 1900, 531; comparison of European and Native troops and prisoners as regards disease statistics, 532; tables of diseases for which they were treated in hospital and of causes of death, 532, 533; cholera statistics of troops and prisoners in Bengal, with table, 534. Bibliography, 535.

Punjab, the physical aspects of, 28–33; its rivers, 29–32; their shifting channels and licence in the plains, 33; geology of: Carbo-Trias, 70, see also Salt Range and Siwalik; meteorology of, 111, 116, 117, 123, 124, 125, 130, 140, 148, 150; botany of, see Indus Plain; zoology of, 214; ethnology of, 293; of Western and Central, 372; languages of, Panjābī, 369; Lahndā, 371; Buddhists in, 413; Muhammadans in, 434; population and density in Punjab and NW. Frontier Province, 454; growth of population, 465; birth-rate, 506; death-rate, 512; infantile mortality, 517.

Purāṇa, the Vishnu, a work of the sixth century, the foundation of Vaishnavism, 424; one God, but of Brāhmans only, 424.

Purāṇa group of rocks, its two divisions and distribution, 61-64; in the Cuddapah and Kurnool Districts, 61; in the Vindhyan range, 62; in Burma, 62; possibly in the Himālayas, 63.

Q

Quetta, physical aspects of, 7; easy routes practicable from it to the Persian frontier, 8.

R

Rādhāswāmī, a modern reformed sect of Vaishnavism in the United Provinces, 427; founded by Shiu Dayāl Singh (A.D. 1818-78), a Khatrī of Agra, 427; the three spheres of the universe, 427; the second presided over by the God of the Bible, of the Vedantists, and of the Muhammadan saints, 428; its doctrine of progressive transmigration to the presence of the Supreme, 428; has no priests and no temples, 428; reverence paid to its spiritual head, 428.

Rainfall, normal and abnormal, annual measurements of, 104; average rainfall of India during the year, 110, 140; during south-west monsoon, 110; during cold-weather period, 114, 140; table of rainfall in Bengal and Assam during hot monsoon, 118; rainfall during wet monsoon, 118, 119, 124; its pulsatory character, 124; normal rainfall, May to October, 126; relation of Indian rainfall to rainfall elsewhere, 127, 128; table of variations of rainfall from 1878 to 1902 and of Nile floods, 128; influence of snowfall in Himālayas on rainfall, 129; complexity of distribution of monsoon rainfall, 129; its discontinuity, 129; important variations of period and distribution from normal, 130; chart of normal rainfall in the plains, 131; contraction of rainfall during retreating south-west monsoon, 131; its irregularity in amount and distribution, 136, 137; special remarks on rainfall in India and droughts, 138–146; cold-weather rainfall, due to storms, its amount, 140; hot-weather rainfall, its amount, 140; greatest in Assam, 141; generally of little value, 141; rainfall of south-west monsoon, nearly 90 per cent. of whole due to oceanic currents from Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, 141; distribution, 142; cyclonic storms of, 143; excessive downpours of, 143, 144; its variability, with tables, 144, 145; deficient rainfall and droughts, 145, 146; see also Droughts; rainfall data of twenty-one meteorological divisions of India, 153; variation of density of population with rainfall, 451; influence of rainfall upon supply of food and water, 503, 504; upon disease, 523; the pollution of water-supplies, 503; the mortality curve during monsoon and after, 503, 525.

Rajasthani, the language of Rajputana, 367.

Rajputana: physical aspects of, 33–35; divided by the Aravallis into two unequal parts, 35; southern, 34, 35; the country of the ancient Rajput dynasties and cities, 34; its better atmosphere and climate, 34; geology of, 76, 100, 101; meteorology of, 113, 116, 117, 123, 124, 125, 129, 150; delay of rainfall in, 130; botany of, 176, 177 and n., see also Indus Plain; zoology of, 214; ethnology of, 293, 294; Rajasthani, mainly a Midland speech, 367; four groups of its numerous dialects, 367; Mārwāri, 367, 368; its offshoots, Pahāri, Nepalī, Gujarī, 368.

Rājputāṇa Sea of Palaeozoic times, 1; edged by the Aravallis, 1; now the Thar or great desert of India, 33; existed during Upper Jurassic times, 76.

Rajputs, typical representatives of Indo-Aryan family, physical characters of, 293, 299; intermarriage with Jāts, 300; manufacture of fictitious, 312, 320, 321, 327; abstain from widow remarriage, 322; next in rank to Brāhmans, 326; their number, 327; the dispersion of the Rājput powers and clans by the Muslim conquest, 433.

Rām Mohan Roy (1774-1833), founder of the Brahmo Samaj, 429.

Rāma, an incarnation of Vishnu, the god of the orthodox Brāhman, 424; possibly once a local Rājput hero of Kosala, 424; connexion of his cult with Buddhism, 424; preserves the kindliness of Buddhism and its tenderness for animal life, 424.

Rāmāyana, the, an epic, a collection of popular eastern legends, 419; its probable date, 500–200 B.C., 418; Rāma and Sitā, models of virtue, 419; still the Vaishnava Bible in its Eastern Hindi rendering by Tulsi Dās, 419.

Rangoon, meteorology of, 126.

Rann of Cutch, the, its physical aspects and recent emergence, 38; geology of, 75; partial submersion by earthquake of 1819, 99; meteorology of, 123; botany of, 22; Indus Plain.

Rats and Mice, 227–229.

Rāvi, the, an affluent of the Indus, 32.

Rāwalpindi, temperatures at, 150, 152, 154; botany of, 179.

Religion, the, of the peasant and common folk, 432, 433; largely based upon primitive Animism, 430–432.

Religions, ch. viii, pp. 402–446. Vedic period (c., 1500–200 B.C.), 402; the Aryan religion, 402; the Vedas, 402; Vedic theology, 403; the gods departmental, 404; beginnings of Pantheism, 404. The Brāhmana period (c. 800–500 B.C.), 404; the supremacy of the priesthood, 404; theology and worship in the Brāhmanas, 405; life after death, 405; human sacrifice, 405; theology in the Upanishads, 406; the anti-Brahmanical reaction, 406; Gautama, the Buddha (c. 590–508 B.C.), 407. Buddhism, 408–413; its origin, 408; its relation to caste, 408; its ethics, 409; its theology and psychology, 409; its way of salvation, 409; causes of its spread, 409; the Sangha or Congregation of Monks, 410; became a state religion under Asoka, 410; a doubtful gain, 411; as a missionary religion, 411; later Indian Buddhism, 411; Buddhism in decay, 412; causes of decline, 412; Buddhism at the present time, 413; survivals of Buddhism in Bengal, 413. Jainism, 414–417; contrasted with Buddhism, 414; the Jain schism, 414; causes of the survival of Jainism, 415; Jain literature, vast, only partially explored, 415; the Jain pantheon, 415; Jainism at the present day, 416; sects and distribution of Jains, 416. Brahmanism modified into Hinduism, 417; the epics, 417; the Mahābhārata, 418; the Rāmāyana, 418; the religious influence of the epics, 419. Sivaism and Vaishnavism, 419; Vishnu and Siva compared, 420; the extension of Sivaism, 421; the Siva sects, 421; the Sāmtas, 421; the Lingāyats, 422; Vishnu and Vaishnavism, 423; the gods of Vaishnavism, Krishna, 423; Kāma, 424; the growth of Vaishnavism, 424; the Vaishnava reformers, 425; Kabir and Kabirpanthis, 425; Chaitanya, 426; erotic Vaishnavism, 426; Sikhism, 426; the Sāktas, 427; modern Vaishnava sects: the Rādhāswāmīs, 427; sects founded on social revolt, 428; the Satnāmis, 428; modern theistic sects: the Brahmo Samaj, 429; the Arya Samaj, 429; sectarianism in modern Hinduism, 430. Animism, 430–432; in its purest form, 431; origin of, in India, 432; enumeration of Animists, 432; the religion of the peasant, 432. Islam, 432–438; its progress, 434; effect of Animism, 435; the Pachpiriyas, 435; sects of Islam, Sunnis and Shiahs, 436; minor sects of Islam, the Wahābis, 439; Sūfism, 437; the Ahmadiyas, 438; Moplahs, Bohras, Khojas, 438; the Islam revival, 438. Mazdaism or Zoroastrianism, 439; the Pārsi emigration to India, under pressure of Islam, 439; Mazdaism on Indian soil, recent revival, 440; numbers, location, and tenets of Pārsis, 440. Jews in India, 441. Christianity in India, early preaching of, 441; Catholic missions, 442; Protestant missions, 442; numbers and distribution of native Christians, 443; the fact and causes of the recent progress of Christianity in the Indian Empire, 445. Bibliography, 446.

Religions: statistics of Census, 471; difficult to distinguish Hinduism and other indigenous religions, 471; the regional distribution of, 471–477; their relation to marriage, 481–483; to education, 484. See Census of Religions, Table VI, 493. Remarriage of widows, its practice as modifying social status and forming new castes, 317, 321; abstention from, as a claim to social promotion, 322; allowed by early Lingayats, 422; by Jāts, 322; forbidden by higher castes everywhere, and in Bengal by all but lowest, 481, 482; its prohibition often discourages early wedlock, 482.

Reptiles, 266–272; palaeontology of, illustrated by Siwalik deposits, 97.

Rhinoceros, 231.

Rhododendrons, belt of, in Eastern Himālayas, 159, 160; in temperate zone of Sikkim, 168; odorous R. in alpine zone, 170; of Burma, 198, 200.

Risley, H. H., ‘The study of Ethnology in India,’ in Journal of Anthropological Institute, 289; Tribes and Castes of Bengal, quoted, 327; his table of precedence for Bengal proper adopted for the Census of 1901, 326; Caste, Tribe, and Race in Report on the Census of India, 1901, 283.

Roman Catholics, their missions: Portuguese Franciscans, 442; St. Francis Xavier, 442; Jesuit missions, 442; interesting history of mission at Champāran in Bihar, 444. See also Christians, Christianity, Missions.

S

Saiva sects, the, a conservative force in Hinduism, 421; their struggles with Buddhism, 421; the repulsive asceticism of some, 421; the Smārtas and the Lingāyats, 421–423.

Sāktas, the third great sect of Hinduism, 427; worships the active female principle, 427; its impure associations and abominable rites, 427; opposed by the Vaishnava reformers, 427; its recent spread in Upper India, 427.

Salt Range of the Punjab, geology of, the oldest fossiliferous strata in India, 64; division of its Cambrian strata, 64; gaps in its geological record, 65; Permian boulder-bed, 70; Productus shales and limestones, 71; passage to Triassic strata, 72; the Ceratite formations, 73; Jurassic strata, 76; Nummulitic rocks, 92; botany of Rāwalpindi, 179.

Samaj, modern theistic sects, 429; the Brahmo Samaj, founded by Ram Mohan Roy (1774-1833), 429; a form of Unitarianism of European type, 429; its three sections, 429; the Adi Samaj, oldest and most conservative, adheres to rules and rites of Hinduism, 429; the Nabibidhan Samaj, founded by Keshub Chunder Sen, 429; eclectic from Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam, 429; the Sadhāran Brahmo Samaj, the most advanced, 429; rejects caste, seclusion of women, and Hinduism generally, 429; attracts Hindus of English education, 429; the Arya Samaj, founded by Dayānand Saraswatī (1827-53), 429; the Vedas their only scripture, pure monotheists, devoted to social improvement, 429, 430; of influence in NW. India, 429; their number, 473, 474.

Sand-grouse, 255.

Sankarāchārya, one of the two great missionaries of Sivaism, 421, 422; founded monasteries from Kumaun to Mysore, and the sect of Smārtas, 421; a main cause of the downfall of Buddhism in N. India, 421; deified by Saivas as incarnation of Siva, 421.

Sanskrit, original dialect of the ‘Midland,’ the true home of the Indo-Aryans, 357; its early literary culture, 357; a polished form of an archaic tongue, 357; no longer a vernacular in 300 B.C., 357; its evolution and relation to Prakrit, 357; analogy of Latin and Romance languages, 358; no modern Indian language directly derived from Sanskrit, 358; its prestige and influence upon modern vernaculars, 362; tatsamas, taulhavas, and desyas, 363.

Santāls, a typical Dravidian tribe of Chotā Nāgpur, 296; their polyandry, 372; their language Santālī, of the Mundā family, much studied lately, 383.

Satnāmis, a modern reformed Vaishnava sect, 428; founded by an Oudh Rājput, Jagjīvandās, early in seventeenth century, 428; and spread among his own caste by the Chamār Ghāsidās (1820–30 A.D.), 428; its seven principles, 428; its purity and morality debased, 428.

Sātpurā Hills, 36; break near Khandwā, 36, 37; geology of, 83.

Saurasenī, a Prākrit of the Midland, close to great kingdom of Kanauj, 361; the prose language of the Indian dramas, 361; its vocabulary that of Sanskrit, 362.

Scottish Church, its missions, 443; Dr. Duff, one of the pioneers of higher education, 443.

Scythians, invasions by, 305–308. See Invasions and immigrations, Scytho-Dravidian.

Scytho-Dravidian Race or Type, the, its distribution and physical characteristics, 293; evidence from China, coins, and Indian tradition of successive invasions of India by Scythians from the west, 305; historical record of Scythian invasions, 305, 306; possible course of Scythians from Western Punjab southwards to become, with indigenous Dravidians, ancestors of the Marāthās, 306–308.

Seasons, Cold, Dry, Hot, Wet; see Cold, Dry, Hot, Wet Seasons.

Sectarianism in modern Hinduism, 430; theoretically prominent, practically softened or obliterated by eclectic spirit of the system, 430; the god of one sect or individual may be in a less degree a god of other sects and individuals, 430; the sanctity of holy places common to many creeds, 430.

Senart, M., Les Castes dans l’Inde, 337, 339-342.

Sex, statistics of, 479; normal excess in India of male over female births, 480, 510; 963 females living to every 1,000 males, 479; proportion of males to females in different parts, 479; majority of males in the western half, of females in the eastern, except in Bengal proper and Assam, 479; recent increase of females, as the stronger sex, especially in Central Provinces, 479, 480; explanations of deficiency of females, 480; not female infanticide, 480; neglect, female risks, and possibly race, 480; male and female death-rates, 516; highest female mortality from ten to thirty-four years, the years of procreation and its risks, 516; the huge loss of life in childbed, 516; the value of the Dufferin Association, 516; occupations common to men and women, 488; peculiar to women, 488.

Shad, hilsa of Bengal, ‘Sable fish’ of S. India, ‘Palla’ of the Indus, 277.

Shāqirdpeshas of Bengal, a true caste, formed by crossing, and adopting endogamy, 317.

Shan, a Tai language, allied to Siamese, spoken in Upper Burma, 388; its voluminous literature, 389.

Sharks, abundant in Indian seas, one high up large rivers, 275; the Hammerheaded shark, 275.

Sheep (wild), found in Himālayas and hills of Punjab and Sind, the Great Tibetan (Ovis hodgsoni), the Great Pamir (Ovis poli), 233.

Shiahs, the, a main sect of Islām, 436; reject the first three Imāms as usurpers, 436; observe the feast of Muharram in memory of martyrdom of Alī and his two sons, the grandsons of the Prophet, 436; their parade of the taziās, 436; form a large majority in Persia and Afghanistan, 436; Lucknow and Hyderābād their chief seats in India, 436. See Sunnis.

Sholapur, meteorology of, 126, 142.

Sholas, indigenous forests of Nilgiris, 40; botany of, 188; of Anaimalais and Palnis, 188.

Sibsāgar, meteorology of, 126.

Sikhism, a religious reform ending in a political organization, 426; founded in the Punjab by Guru Nānak (1469–1538 A.D.), his formula, the Unity of God and the Brotherhood of Man, 427; inspired by Kabir, 427; the five marks or ka, 427; the Granth or Sikh Bible, 427; its inspiring influence, 293; tendency to revert to Brāhmanism, 527; the number of its adherents, 473.

Sikkim, the most humid region of Himālayas, 166; botany of, 166–170; tropical zone, 167; temperate zone, 168; alpine zone, 169.

Silurian (Gothlandian) beds, 66.

Simla, on the divide between the Sutlej and the Jumma, 19; its day and night temperatures, 151, 152; its mean temperature, 155; Flora Simlensis, 172.

Sind, Tertiary marine rocks of, 92; Gaj or miocene beds in, 93; rainfall, 104; meteorology of, 117, 123, 148, 149; botany of, 179; see also Indus Plain; zoology of, 214; language, Sindhi, closely connected with Lahndā, uncultivated and with hardly a literature, 372; four dialects spoken in Upper and Lower Sind, the Thar, and Cutch, 372; great growth of population in, owing to irrigation canals and railways, 463.

Singhbhūm, in Chotā Nāgpur, botany of, 190, 191.

Siva, the third person in the Hindu Triad, his Aryan origin, 419; the coarser elements of his worship possibly Dravidian, 420; the Destroyer and Reproductioner, 420; the Yogi, the sage, the Dionysos, 419, 420; as Visvesvara, ‘Lord of the Universe,’ his lingam the chief object of worship at Benares, 421; has shrines in most villages, 421; his worship cheap and plain, 421.

Siwalik (geological) system, the, alluvial pliocene deposits rich in vertebrate fossils, 96, 97; palaeontology of mammals, reptiles, birds, and fishes, 96, 97; age of, determined by Irrawaddy system, 97.

Siwalik Hills, physical aspects of, 17.

Small-pox, the times of its prevalence, 524; recent decrease in mortality from, 524; table of mortality from, and of successful vaccination during 1871-80, 1881-90, 1891-1920, 525.

Smārtas, the, a Saiva sect of Brāhmans of the S. Deccan, 421; founded by Sankarāchārya, 421, 422; their teaching representative of the highest form of Brāhmanic pantheism, 422.

Snakes, 269-272. See Zoology.

Snakes, Colubridae, divided according to teeth into (a) harmless, (b) slightly poisonous, (c) most poisonous, 270; (a) the ‘carpet snake,’ the dhāman or Rat snake, 270; (b) water snakes, the ‘whip snake,’ 271; (c) Hydrophiinae, sea snakes, 271; Elapinae; the Cobras; Naia tripudians, the Great Cobra (Hamadryas or Ophiophagus), the karait, the rāj-sāmp or King-snake, the black Cobra; their marks and distribution, 271, 272.

Soma, the moon-plant, Vedic worship of, 403.

Southern India, physical aspects of, 37–47; rigid classification of castes in, 326; elaboration of idea of ceremonial pollution, 326.

Specific fevers, high mortality from, 523; their communicability not the only factor in their spread and fatality, 523; contributory causes, deficient resistance, due to poverty, chronic or acute, 523; insanitary habits and surroundings, 523, 524; tables of mortality from, in all India, 521; among European troops, 526, 527; in Native army, 529, 530; in jails, 530, 531.

Squirrels, 226, 227.

Stature, Topinard’s classification of, 292; as index of race more significant in India than in Europe, 292.

Storks, the Adjutant, 264.

Storms and cyclones, of the cold-weather period, 112, 113; of the hot-weather period, 117; cyclonic storms, in Arabian Sea, 120; at Aden in 1885, 120; in the Bay of Bengal, 125, 143; October cyclones, 134, 135, 137, 141; of hail, 117; of dust, 117.

Subsistence, means of, unequal to population, in United Provinces, 466, in Magadha, 375; equal to present growth of population in India generally, 461, 462.

Sūdras, the, the fourth and lowest of the original castes or groups, the class of artisans and servants, 332; a late invention or formation, 334, 335; their hopeless state during the period of the Brāhmanas, 407; the term now out of favour, 325.

Sūfism, a minor sect of Islām, 437; a strange combination of Aryan pantheism with Semitic monotheism, 437; the soul an emanation from God, ever seeking to rejoin its source, 437; ecstasy as a means of approach, absorption the end, 437; accepted by leading Sunnis, 437.

Sundarbans, botany of, 182–184. See also Ganges, Gangetic Plain, Deltas.

Sunnis, the, or Traditionalists, a main sect of Islām, 436; unlike the Shiahs, accept the Sunnat as concurrent with or supplementary to the Korān, 436; form the vast majority in Turkey and India, 436. See Shiahs.

Sutlej, the, chief affluent of the Indus, 31; its rise, course, length, and scenery, 31; its affluent, the Beas, 32.

Svetambara, or ‘white-clothed’ sect of Jains in N. and W. India, 414; the only possessors of the older sacred books, the Angas and Pürvas, 414; their schism from the Digambara, ’those clothed with the sky’ of the south, 414; who worship naked idols and revere their Gurus and deny the salvation of women, 417; the Dhondiyas, who worship their Gurus, 417.

T

Tables and Classifications other than statistical. Geological: the arrangement and chief divisions of the four great groups of Indian rocks, 55; the strata of the fossiliferous Cretaceous rocks of Trichinopoly, 78; Tertiary formations in Burma, 95. Botanical: the nine Regions, subdivided into sixty-four Provinces, of Indian Flora, 163–165. Zoological: the three zoological areas of India, 214. Linguistic: a classified list of modern Indo-Aryan vernaculars, 364; classified list of modern Dravidian vernaculars, 379; a list of the Mundā languages, 383; a classified list of Indo-Chinese languages of India and Nepāli, 390–394; a list of minor languages spoken in India, 394.

Tamil, or Arava, the oldest, richest, and most organized of Dravidian tongues, 380; the language of all S. India to Mysore and the Ghāts on the west, and as far north as Madras city, and of N. Ceylon, and of domestic servants, 380; has a copious literature and its own alphabet, 380.

Tāptī, river of Western India, 36.

‘Tarai,’ different meanings of term in West Himalayan region and in Sikkim, 167; usual or correct meaning, the swampy lowlands at the foot of the Lower Himālayas and below the belt of forest, 167, 407.

Telugu, the only important Andhra language of the Dravidian family, the principal speech of the east of the Peninsula from Madras city to Orissa, 381; its extensive literature, its own script, curved like Oriyā, 381.

Temperature, 105, 110, 111, 116 n.; its tendency to uniformity during rainfall, with table, 126; special remarks on Indian temperatures, 146–152; variation of ground surface temperature and effect on air movement, 147; variation of air temperature, 147; diurnal variation of air temperature, 148; diurnal range, 148; annual variation, 148, 149; maximum and minimum diurnal temperatures, 149, 150; mean diurnal temperatures, 150; hill temperatures, 150; day and night temperatures, inversion of temperature with elevation, 149–152; average mean temperatures, tables of, (1) at twenty-one stations in the plains, 154; (2) at twelve hill stations, 155; the influence of changes and ranges of temperature upon health, 504; upon buildings, overcrowding, and fresh air, 504.

Tenasserim, meteorology of, 104, 122, 134, 142; zoology of Southern, 214.

Tertiary (geological) era, 89–97; marked by a great period of earth movement, and elevation of Himālayas, 87; the passage from Cretaceous to Tertiary, 90; Cardita beaumonti beds, 91; Himālayan Tertiaries, 91, 92; Nummulitic stage, 92; Tertiaries of Sind, 92; of Baluchistan, 92, 93; of the Kohāt region with deposits of rocksalt, 93; in Kashmir, Ladakh, and Assam, 93; miocene of Sind in the Kīrthar range, the Gāj series, 93; in Burma, 94–96.

Tethys, of geology, the great central ocean, 57.

Thar, the, or Indian desert, its physical aspects, 33, 34; its wind-blown sand deposit, 101.

Theism, modern, in India, 429, 430; Brahmoism, akin to Unitarianism, 429; its sects, the Adi Samaj, a purified Hinduism, with prohibition of intercaste marriages, 429; the Nabibidhan Samaj, founded by Keshub Chunder Sen, 429, eclectic from Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, 429; the Sadhāran Brahmo Samaj, rejects caste and common Hinduism, 429; the Arya Samaj recognizes the Vedas only, monotheistic, humanitarian, 429, 430.

Tigers, widely distributed, but none in Ceylon, their haunts and habits, 218.

Tinnevelly and Madura, physical aspects of, 46, 193; contrasted with Ceylon, 46; recent rise and subsidence of land at Tinnevelly, 99; hot and dry, sheltered from monsoon, 193; botany of, 193; their cotton and senna, 193.

Tortoises and Turtles, 267, 268.

Totemism, 290, 299, 308, 313, 318, 322, 323, 328, 423.

Towns, i.e. aggregates with a population not less than 5,000, 455; tendency towards growth of, least in Bengal, most in Bombay, Berar, and Rajputana, 455; recent growth in number and population of towns, 456; especially of Rangoon, Karachi, Cawnpore, and Ahmadabad, 457; decay of other towns, 456; population of Calcutta, 457; Bombay, 457; Madras, 458; other great towns, with increase and decrease since 1891 (Table V), 492; comparison of urban and rural mortality, with a table, 518; the growth of towns unaccompanied by civic organization and sanitary regulations, 519; the evils of overcrowding in towns, 520; due to social and economic causes, 520. See Census Tables I, IV, V.

Trade-winds, south-east, of Indian Ocean, variations of, with south-west monsoon currents, 126, 127.

Transmigration, theory of, 347, 406, 422, 428.

Travancore, physical aspects of, 46, 47; its resemblance in climate and scenery and flora to Ceylon, 47, 186; botany of, 186. See also Malabar.

Trees, Flowering Plants, notable: Edelweiss, 170; cotton, 177, 193; Bengal rose, 181; floating Fly-trap (Aldrovanda vesiculosa), 161, 182; Oryza coarctata, 184; Myriostachya Wightiana, 184; aerial root-suckers, 184; Strobilanthes, 160, 187; the Sāl, 190, 191, 199; Satin-wood, 192; Sandal-wood, 192; Indian Red-wood, 192; the Tūn, 192; Acacia planifrons, 193; the Eng, 198; the Pitcher-plant, 200, 207; the Tea-plant, 201; Rosa gigantea, 202; Lonicera Hildebrandiana (Honeysuckle), 202; Impatiens mirabilis (Balsam), 206; Ochlandra stridula, 195; Rafflesia, 203, 207; Bruckmannia Loweii root-parasite, 207.

Tribes in India, definition of, 308; families with a common name and language and locality, and claiming common descent from a human or animal ancestor, not necessarily endogamous, 308; the Dravidian, as found in Chotā Nāgpur and among the Khonds of Orissa, 308, 309; the nearest approach to McLennan’s primitive unit of society, the local exogamous tribe, 309; the Mongoloid, as found in the Nāgā Hills, 309; the Turko-Irānian, 309–311; the Afghan type, 309; the Baloch and Brāhui type, 310; all knit together by obligations of blood-feud, 309, 310; none strictly endogamous, 310.

Tribes, conversion of, into castes, 308, 311–313; castes not merely developed tribes, 344; primitive tribes exogamous rather than endogamous, 344.

Trichinopoly coast, geology of, its Cretaceous rocks, 77–80; division of fossiliferous strata into four stages, 78; their high interest and importance, 77, 80; meteorology of, 126.

‘Trout,’ so called, see Carp; no true trout in India, 277.

Tulsi Dās (died 1624 A.D.), his version of the Rāmāyana into Eastern Hindi, 419.

Turko-Iranian Type or Race, the, its distribution and physical characteristics, 293; tribes, 309, 310.

U

United Provinces: date of monsoon, 124; ethnology of, 294; missionary work of American Methodist Church in, 444; population and density in, 454; very slight increase of population since 1891, 466; its causes, including emigration, 466; population greater than means of subsistence, 466; birth-rate, 506; death-rate, 512; infantile mortality, 517.

Upanishads, the, or exposition of the hidden spiritual doctrine, sacred writings later in thought than the Brāhmanas, 406; the doctrine of absorption into Brahma, and the theory of transmigration, 406.

Urdū, a Persianized form of Hindostānī, widely spoken and written in Upper India, 365, 366; its origin at the Mughal court, 365; generally used by Musalmāns in the Deccan, 365; its literature in prose and poetry, 366; written in a form of the Persian character, 366.

V

Vaikrita strata of Upper Cambrian system, 65.

Vaishnavism, characteristics of, 423; its foundations in the Purāṇa, 424; its gods, Krishna and Rāma, 423; originally the religion of Brāhmans only, 424; its reformers and popularizers, Rāmānuja, Kabīr, Rāmānand, Chaitanya, 425, 426; its sects and developments, 426; erotic, 426; Sikhism, 426, 427; modern reform, the Rādhāswāmīs, 427, 428; the Satnāmis, 428.

Vaisya, one of the four original castes or groups, the trading and agricultural classes, 332; during the period of the Brāhmanas regarded as mere supporters of the expenses of the sacrificial system, 407.

Vallabhāchāryas, a sect of erotic Vaishnavism, 426; chiefly in W. India, 426; their Gosain or leader regarded as a divinity, 426.

Vardhamāna (599-527 B.C.), the founder of Jainism, 414; of the same class, time, and country as Gautama, gained the name of Mahāvira, ’the great hero,’ 414; assumed that of Jina, ’the victorious,’ 414.

Variations in population, see Census Table II, 489; conditions and causes of, 460, 461.

Vedas, the, a collection of Hymns, generally ritualistic, mainly the work of priests, 402; composed at different stages of Aryan immigration, 402, 403; Vedic theology, its departmental gods of sky, air, and earth, 403; beginnings of anthropomorphism, pantheism, and of the idea of a Father-God, 403, 404; the Atman or all-pervading spirit, 404; the birth in ‘Midland’ of Brahmanism, the supremacy of ritual, sacrifice, and priesthood, 404, 405.

Vernacular languages of India, five families, Aryan, Dravidian, Mundā, Mon-Khmer, and Tibeto-Chinese, 351.

Vernaculars, modern Indo-Aryan, their origin, 359–362; their descent from Apabhraṃsas, 362; their borrowings, 363; a list of vernaculars and numbers of speakers, 364; their distribution, history, character, and literature, 364–378. See also Languages.

Vertebrates, number of genera and species, 213; distribution of, 213, 214.

Villages, inhabited by nine-tenths of the population, 455; 728,605 in number, with an average population of 364, 455; the term very various in its meaning, 456; comparison of urban and rural mortality, 518. See Census Tables I, IV.

Vindhyan (geological) system, 62; mainly sandstone with shale and limestone, 62.

Vindhyas, range of mountains, physical aspects of, 35; dividing basins of Ganges and Mahānadī, 35; their geology, 62.

Vipers: Russell’s Viper or Chain-viper and Cobra monil of S. India, or ticpolonga of Ceylon; Echis carinata or the Kappa; Pit Vipers, 272. For other poisonous snakes, see Snakes.

Vishnu, the second person of the Hindu Triad, 419, 420, 423; in the Rig-Veda and the Mahābhārata, 419; compared with Siva, 420, 423; characteristics of Vaishnavism, 423; his Avatāras or incarnations in animal or human shape, 423; his manifold forms, 423; his incarnations as Krishna and Rāma, 423.

Volcanoes, action of, at close of Cretaceous period, 2, 3, 87; recent, 98.

Vrātya, the twice-born who have neglected duties and rites, 334.

Vultures, 252.

W

Wahābis, a minor sect of Islam, 436, 437; founded by Ibn Abdul Wahāb, in Arabia, early in eighteenth century, 436; puritanical, fanatical, political, 436; partial agreement with Sunnis, 437; protest against reverence to Imāms and saints, 438; introduced into India by Sayid Ahmad Shāh, 1826; a constant trouble on NW. frontier, 438; their dangerous teaching of religious war against the rulers of India, 438; some recent decay of fanaticism, 438.

Water-supply, its dependence upon the character of the monsoon, 502; its collection in surface tanks and wells, in rivers, 503; its liability to pollution, 503; excess, 524; and deficiency, 503; the diseases consequent thereon, 503, 504, 523, 524; provision of pure water supplies, 503, 519; defective drainage, 503, 523.

Weaver Birds, 244.

Wet season, from June to September, changes of pressure, with a graphic, 119, 120; of air movement, with a graphic, 120, 121; currents in Arabian Sea, 120, 122, 123; in Bay of Bengal, 122; date of establishment of wet season in different parts of India, 124; marked tendency to uniformity of temperature, cloud, and humidity conditions, with table, 126; mean rainfall, 140. See also Monsoon, Rainfall, Temperature.

Whales, no Right Whale (Balaena) in Indian waters, 238; Fin Whales, Sperm Whales, 238.

‘Whiting’ of Madras and Calcutta, 280.

Winds. See Monsoon, Storms.

Wolves, not found in Ceylon or Burma, dangerous to children, superstition against killing, tales of children reared by, 221.

X

Xavier, Francis, Saint, his labours in S. Madras and Malabar coast, death in China, burial at Goa, 442.

Y

Yaks, wild and tame, 231, 232; interbreed with domestic cattle, 232.

Yenangyaung (geological) series, 94–99.

Zoology (vertebrate) of British India, chap. iv, pp. 213-282.

Richness of Fauna, 213; distribution of Fauna in zoological regions and areas, 213, 214; review of principal Vertebrate animals: I. Mammals, 214-239; primates: monkeys, lemurs, 214-217; carnivora, 217-224; felidae or cats, 217-219; lions, 217; tigers, 218; leopards or panthers, 218, 219; viverridae or civets, 219; ichneumons, the nungoose, 220; hyena, 220; canes or dogs, wolves, Indian jackal, wild dogs, foxes, 221, 222; martens and weasels, 222; badgers, 222; otters, 222; cat-bear or Himalayan raccoon, 223; ursidae or bears, 223; insectivora, 224, 225; tree-shrews, hedgehogs, moles, shrews, 224; flying lemur, 225; chiroptera or bats, 225, 226; rodentia, 226-230; squirrels, 226; marmots, 227; jerboa, 227; rats and mice, 227-229; porcupines, 229; hares and pikas, 229; ungulata, 230-238; elephants, 230; wild asses, rhinoceros, tapirs, 231; wild oxen, yak, buffalo, bison, Gaur, Gayal, and Tsine or Banteng, humped cattle, 231, 232; wild sheep, 233; wild goats, 233, 234; ibex, 233, 234; antelopes, 234, 235; deer, 235-237; wild pigs, 237; cetacea, whales, porpoises, and dolphins, 238; sirenia, the dugong, 238; edentata, the pangolin, 239.

II. Birds, 239–266; passerines, 239–246; eurylaemi or broad-bills, 246, 247; pici or woodpeckers, 247; zygodactylis, 247; ansiodactylis, 248, 249; macrochires, 249, 250; trogones, 250; coccyges or cuckoos, 250, 251; pittaci or parrots, 251; striges or owls, 251; accipitres or birds of prey, 252–254; osprey, 252; vultures, 252; eagles, 253; kites, 253; harriers, 253; buzzards and hawks, 253, 254; falcons, 254; columbae or pigeons and doves, 254, 255; pterocletes or sand-grouse, 255; gallinae or fowls, 256–258; penfowl, 256; jungle-fowls, 256; pheasants, 256, 257; spur-fowls, 257; quails, 257, 258; partridges, 258; grallae, rails, finfeet, cranes, and bustards, 259, 260; limicolae, plovers, snipes, and waders, 260–262; gaviae, gulls and terns, 262, 263; steganopodes, pelicans and cormorants; tubinares, petrels, 263; herodiones, herons, ibises, storks, and spoonbills, 264; phoenicopteri or flamingoes, 265; anseres, swans, geese, and ducks, 265, 266; pygopodes or grebes, 266.

III. Reptiles, 266–272; crocodiles, 266, 267; chelonia, tortoises and turtles, 267, 268; squamata, lizards, 268, 269; snakes, all the known families inhabit India, and India alone, 269–272; pythons and boas, 269, 270; colubridae, 270, 271; the cobras, 271, 272; the vipers, 272.

IV. Batrachians, 272–274; ecaudata, or frogs and toads, 273, 274; caudata, or newts and salamanders, 274; apoda, 274.

V. Fishes, 274–282; chondropterygii, sharks, saw-fishes, dog-fishes, rays, and skates, 275; teleostei, 276–282; including (with others) eels, 276; cat-fishes, 276; carps, 276, 277; herrings, 277; ‘Bombay duck,’ 278; perch, 278; mullets, 278, 279; the mango-fish, 279; sword-fishes, 279; horse-mackerels, 279; the pomfrets, 280; mackerel and tunny, 280; Madras and Calcutta ‘whiting,’ 280; ‘mud-skippers’ and spiny eels, 280; murrel, 280; climbing perch, 281; flat fishes, 282; pipe-fishes and sea-horses, 282; plectognath, 282; amphioxus or lancelet, 282.

Zoroastrianism, or the Pārsī religion, 439-441.