50 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA. 



to the early Aryans ; and even they themselves are at the 

 present day scarcely worshipped at all, in their radical forms, 

 by the great body of the people, but only in the form of 

 mythological consorts and sons, and incarnations in many 

 forms, most of which are probably adaptations of the gods and 

 heroes of the races thus absorbed within the accommodating 

 pale of Hinduism. Nor is this all. Even such secondary forms 

 of the regular gods of the Brahmans receive but little of the 

 real devotion of the people, which is paid rather to tribal and 

 village deities, unheard of in recognised mythology, and to 

 the Lares and Penates of the householder. And these, the 

 Brahman priest, who is paid for his services, has no scruple 

 in recognising as orthodox. Superficial inquirers have quoted 

 Hinduism as a faith which cannot admit of a proselyte : but 

 nothing could be more completely the reverse of the truth. 

 Anything in the way of new gods may be brought by new 

 worshippers within the pale of orthodoxy, provided only that 

 they agree to accept the dominion of the Brahman priest, 

 together with the caste rules and ceremonial by means of 

 which he exercises his power. 



It was then with a race thus already modified, and with a 

 social and religious system which had thus already engulfed 

 the great mass of the indigenous nations of India, and which 

 was still ready to absorb in a similar manner any number 

 more of them, that the aborigines of Central India came in 

 contact. What has been the result will be discussed in a 

 future portion of this work. 



In a new country like this, few objects of antiquarian in- 

 terest attract the attention of the traveller. Allusion has 

 already been made to the traces of isolated settlements of 

 Aryans in the country, who had all been swept away again, 

 or had been absorbed in the indigenous element surrounding 



