36 VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



Trimurti, or trinity, is composed of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, with an infinite 

 ramification of minor deities. Budhism, which is a persecuted schism of the 

 Brahminical creed, has still some followers in India, among whom are the Jains 

 of western India, Benares and Ceylon.* What is much more remarkable is the 

 fact, that on the Malabar coast is a colony of Christians, whose traditions extend 

 back to the time of St. Thomas. Another, and still more unsophisticated body 

 of them occupies the interior of Travancore. They inhabited their present 

 localities centuries before the modern discovery of the passage to India by the 

 Cape of Good Hope. 



Hindostan was among the countries which were overrun and conquered by 

 Jenghis Khan and Timur. But in the year 1 5^5, Sultan Baber, king of Persia, 

 seized upon India, subduing the native inhabitants, and driving out the Mongol- 

 Tartars of the then existing dynasty. He established his court at Delhi, and 

 India from that epoch was called the Mogul Empire^ the sovereign himself 

 assuming the title of the Great Mogul ; but this once powerful dominion sunk into 

 comparative insignificance during the early part of the past century. The 

 northern Hindoos having mingled for centuries with the Mongol-Tartars, received 

 in common with those people the conventional name of Moguls^ which embraces 

 Persians, Greeks of Bactriana, and Arabs, who are called Moors ; but the latter 

 appellation is more strictly applied to the Mahomedans only. 



The people of India have only been called Hindoos since the Tartar conquest : 

 previous to that event all the inhabitants who professed the Brahminical faith^ 

 were called Gentoos. 



We may add that the gipseys of Europe, whose origin has been so long a 

 paradox to the learned, are now ascertained to be of Hindoo extraction. 



The original country of the Hindoos has been a question among historians. 

 Their reverence for the north, added to the traditions of the Brahmins, and various 

 collateral circumstances, have led Bory de St. Vincent and Malte-Brun to suppose 

 the cradle of these people to have been the lofty table-land about the sources of 

 the Indus, and the elevated valleys of Serinagur ; while Heeren and others are of 

 the opinion that " the Brahmins, and perhaps the Kishatriya and Vaisya castes 



* Heber, Narr. I, p. 154.— II, p. 19, 74, 290. ^m, e^T.—Budhism, though of much more recent 

 date than the primitive Brahminical rehgion, is supposed to have arisen in India a thousand years 

 before Christ, and to have had many followers : but in the sixth century of our era a persecution 

 arose, which expelled nearly all the Budhists from Hindostan, whence they took refuge in the central 

 and eastern provinces of Asia. 



