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INDIA

superficial form of religious belief, and is no more to be
counted as a political factor in India than if it were
entirely Hindu. For the most part they are quiet
peasants, the descendants of Hindus, nominally converted.
 The Muhammadan sovereigns usually treated
them as subjects, in the matter of religion, with great
tolerance ; but more or less pressure was from time to
time brought upon Hindus to induce them to embrace
the faith of the ruling power. This was especially the
case in the time of Aurangzeb, the most bigoted of the
Muhammadan emperors. The change of faith was often
little more than nominal, and took place to an extent just
sufficient to save the joint property of the village community
 from molestation. One section of the brotherhood
 would become Muhammadan, while the rest
remained Hindu. The change of religion had little
practical result, nor did it affect the rules of caste or of
social life in the community.”* Thus the great majority
of Muhammadans in India hardly deserve the name.
« Local saints and Hindu deities still have their shrines,
even in villages held wholly by Muhammadans, and are
still regularly worshipped by the majority, though the
practice is gradually declining. . . . The Hindu family
priests are still kept up and consulted as of old, and
Brahmans are still fed on the usual occasions, and in
many cases still officiate at weddings side by side with
the Muhammadan priests.” ? And the Hindu meets the
Muhammadan half-way. It is no uncommon occurrence
to find the ziarats, or sacred shrines and burial-places of
the frontier, visited by devout Hindu pilgrims quite as
frequently as by Muhammadan devotees. The wellknown
 shrine of the Takht-i-Suliman is held in high
estimation by Hindus; and it is a curious fact that
one of the most popular shrines in the East, situated
in Makran, and visited by thousands of Hindus and
Muhammadans alike every year, is really sacred to a
Mesopotamian goddess who was worshipped before Brahmanism
 was known to India.
1 Sirachey’s ¢¢ India.”