PREFACE.
The following sketch of the Keligions of India appeared originally in 1879 as an article in the Encyclopédie des Sciences Religieuses, which is published in Paris under the editorship of Professor Lichtenberger. My aim in composing it was to present, to that class of readers who take interest in questions of historical theology, but who happen to have no special acquaintance with Indianist studies, a r4sitm4, which should be as faithful and realistic as possible, of the latest results of inquiry in all provinces of this vast domain. At first I thought I might comprise all I had to say in some fifty pages ; but I soon saw that within a space so limited, the w^ork I had undertaken, and which I intended should assume the form of a statement of facts rather than of a series of speculative deductions, would prove absolutely superficial and be sure to give rise to manifold misapprehensions. This first difficulty was easily got over through the friendly liberality of the Editor of the Encyclopedic, for, as soon as aware of it, he handsomely offered to concede to me whatever space I might need. Other difficulties remained, however, besides those connected with the subject in itself — wdiich is one of boundless extent and intricacy, and which no special work, so far as I knew, had as yet treated at once as a whole and in detailed particularity — those, viz., which arose out of the general plan of the w^ork in which my sketch was to appear as an article. The Encyclopddie admitted only of a small number of divisions into chapters, and no notes.
