. Indika. The country and the people of India and Ceylon . while driven out of the land of its birth, has gained a firmfoothold in other lands. Never did a prophet in his owncountry find so numerous a following in other countries. Hisfollowers number to-day five hundred millions of human be-ings, or forty per cent, of the population of the world.* It * Hunter, Brief History of the Indian People, pp. 70 ft*. THE IlELHHoys OF INDIA. 419 should awaken the most serious thoughl of every believer inChrist that the Buddhists are by far the most numerous relig-ious body on earth. From Afghanistan in t
. Indika. The country and the people of India and Ceylon . while driven out of the land of its birth, has gained a firmfoothold in other lands. Never did a prophet in his owncountry find so numerous a following in other countries. Hisfollowers number to-day five hundred millions of human be-ings, or forty per cent, of the population of the world.* It * Hunter, Brief History of the Indian People, pp. 70 ft*. THE IlELHHoys OF INDIA. 419 should awaken the most serious thoughl of every believer inChrist that the Buddhists are by far the most numerous relig-ious body on earth. From Afghanistan in the west, its empire extends northward and southward, until it reaches Japan. Ilard-lv less than three hundred languages and dialects are used by itsdevotees, in which to adore the memory of Buddha and proclaimthe brotherhood of man. From the ice-huts of northern Tibeldown to the palm-groves of Singapore on the equator, its peopleimitate the holy calm of the founder of their faith,and sing withecstatic fervor the Great Renunciation. While the only part of. THE TEMPLE VAltD, CONJEVERAM. India proper which still retains the Buddhisl faith is Burma, theeasternmost part of the empire, some of its fundamental quali-have incorporated themselves into the very fibre of the In-dian character, and can he clearly seen in the Hinduism of latertimes. The noblest survivals of Buddhism in India. says Hunter,are to be found, not among any peculiar body, hut in the re-ligion of the win ile Hindu people; in that principle of the brother-hood of man, with the re assertion of which each new revival of 420 INDIKA. Hinduism starts; in the asylum which the great Hindu sect ofVaishnavas affords to women who have fallen victims to casterules, to the widow and the outcast; in that gentleness and char-ity to all men which take the place of a poor-law in India andgive a high significance to the half-satirical epithet of the MildHindu. * The large part of the Buddhist population of India,leaving out Burma,
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