22 Annual Address. [Feb. 



The Chairman announced that the Elliott Prize for Scientific Re- 

 search for the year 1903 would not be awarded, as the essay received in 

 competition was not of sufficient m.erit to justify the award of the Prize. 



Mr. H, H. Risley, Vice-President, then addressed the Meeting. 



ANNUAL ADDRESS, 1904 



Gentlemen, 



It is due to a series of accidents that I am called upon to take the 

 chair to-night. The President, Mr. Bolton, is on leave in England and 

 we, being old fashioned people and cherishing the traditions of a century 

 ago, have not as yet adopted the relatively modern practice of making 

 an officiating appointment in every casual vacancy. The two senior 

 Vice-Presidents are also absent — a fact which only came to my notice a 

 few days ago. Consequently it has been impossible for me to prepare 

 an address reviewing the work of the Society, or the progress of any of 

 the forms of research with which it deals, on the exhaustive scale achiev- 

 ed by Dr. Hoernle or even in the more modest fashion attempted by 

 myself on a former occasion. I shall therefore merely call attention to 

 some points of interest in the papers noticed in the report and shall then 

 say a few words on the general question of the present position of the 

 Society, and the causes which aifect its influence and the character of 

 its work. 



The papers which interest me most are Mr. O'Malley's on Gaya and 

 the Gayawals, and Dr. Hahn's on the Oraons. Both seem to support 

 the position which I have taken up in the Census Report now being 

 published, that the beginning of Animism and possibly of all religion are 

 to be found in the recognition of indefinite impersonal powers, which are 

 approached not by prayer but by magic, and that the personal element 

 in religion is a later development. The legends cited by Mr. O'Malley 

 are curious, but they are obviously of comparatively recent date, and 

 they belong to the familiar class of myths that are evolved in the attempt 

 to account for some ritual or usage that does not fit into the accepted 

 system of religion. I suspect that the Gaya ritual is a survival of 

 animistic observances older than either Buddhism or Hinduism, and 

 adopted by the latter in that pleasingly Catholic spirit which is common 

 to it and to the paganism of the Greeks and Romans. I cannot attempt to 

 examine the question at length now, but I venture to think that it de- 

 serves further enquiry, and that a minute investigation of the Gaya ritual 

 undertaken on the spot would disclose survivals pointing to its real origin. 

 There is reason to believe that the Gaya district was once occupied by 



