Page 919 : INDIA — INDIA
Individual articles:
pony, donkey and mule are largely used. Sheep and goats are abundant. The monkeys are tame, and are also held sacred. Of wild beasts the most feared is the Bengal tiger. The other beasts of prey are leopards, wolves, jackals, panthers, bears, hyenas, lynxes and foxes. The elephant is used for purposes of war and state. Many poisonous snakes abound, the most dreaded being the cobra.
Occupation. Only one third of the whole country is available for farming, yet two thirds of the people are engaged in [[../Agriculture|agriculture]], and this is why terrible famines, such as that of 1900, occur when there is failure in the crops through lack of rain.
Vegetation. The vegetation is as varied as the climate and the soil, passing from the vegetation of a tropical to that of an alpine region. Rice is the chief article of food, and is produced in all districts where irrigation is practiced. Wheat is grown in the Ganges valley, the Punjab and the central provinces; sugarcane in Agra, Bengal, the Ganges valley and the Punjab; [[../Tea|tea]] in Assam and Bengal; cotton in the northwest provinces, Bombay, Madras and Berar; [[../Indigo|indigo]] in Bengal, Agra, the Ganges valley and Madras; and [[../Tobacco|tobacco]] in Bengal and Madras. Opium is one of the most valuable products. The cultivation of opium is a government monopoly, and it is chiefly exported to China. The [[../Mango|mango]], the peepul, the [[../Orange|orange]], the [[../Banyan|banyan]] and the [[../Teak|teak]] are found among the trees.
Commerce. The United Kingdom enjoys almost a monopoly of the trade, using nearly all the tea raised and the products of the thousand factories belonging to the state. There has of late been a rapid development of the coal-trade, though, owing to the famine, there have been serious diminutions in the volume and value of the export trade. Four fifths cf this trade is with Great Britain, carried through the Suez Canal. About 32,099 miles of [[../Railroads|railroads]] are in operation, which in one year carried 371,576,000 people. There are 72,746 miles of telegraph lines, and 64,395 post-offices, with good roads and a large traffic by boats on the numerous rivers. The canal systems, which are used mainly for irrigation, are the most extensive in the world.
Education. There are five [[../University|universities]], at Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, the Punjab and [[../Allahabad|Allahábad]], with many affiliated colleges; while there are a number of engineering and technical schools and about 135,000 other institutions. These numbers do not include the schools established by the missionaries of different churches, which are very numerous. Only about four per cent, of the people, however, can read or write.
Government. Politically, India is a dependency of Great Britain, consisting partly of territory under the direct administration of British officials, and partly of native states subordinate to the suzerain power. The supreme executive authority is vested in the governor-general in council or viceroy, as he is called, but in England every measure concerning India runs in the name of the secretary of state for India, and he alone is responsible to parliament. For purposes of administration India is divided into the following great divisions, the seat of supreme government being Delhi: the presidencies of Bombay and Madras, each ruled by a governor appointed by the crown, with executive and legislative councils; Bengal; the Northwest Provinces; the Punjab; and Burma — each under a lieutenant-governor and each having a legislative council; the Central Provinces; Assam; and British [[../Baluchistan|Beluchistan]] — all under chief commissioners. Besides the presidencies and provinces under direct British administration, there are a number of feudatory or native states more or less under the control of the Anglo-Indian government. The established strength of the British army in India is over 74,000 men, the native army being about twice as large.
Religion. The population is made up of about fifty native tribes, which can all be traced back to two or three original races. The Hindus, who form three fourths of the people, are strictly those who accept the Hindu religion or Brahmanism, now commonly called Hinduism. This is the great religion of India, [[../Buddha|Buddhism]] and [[../Mohammed|Mohammedanism]] also prevailing. Brahmanism dates back to about 1200 B. C., and its sacred books are called the Vedas and are among the oldest literary documents known. They mainly are collections of hymns. Brahmanism originally was a philosophical religion, mingled with the worship of the powers of nature — Brahma, for example, was represented with four heads, to indicate the four quarters of the globe — but in practice, in the course of centuries, the religion became a system of idolatry, with cruel rites and hideous images. The caste system, a part of the religion, was a grievous burden; the Brahman caste, including the priests, was the highest; then came the warrior caste and the trades caste, the lower classes following. The Mohammedan religion has about 67,000,000 followers in India, and Buddhism has about 10,700,000. The other chief religious sects are the Parsis, Sikhs and Jains. Christianity was introduced in the third and eighth centuries, but received its greatest impetus when [[../Xavier, Saint Francis|St. Francis Xavier]] reached there in 1542. Modern missions began in India early in the 18th century, and the native Christians now number 3,876,196.
History. In the early history of India we have the [[../Aryans|Aryan]] invasion, about 1000 B. C. or earlier, bringing in the Sanskrit
