--Introduction to _The Pilgrim's Progress,_ Macmillan's
Edition.


[Sidenote: No _Indian_ race or religion.]

Experience teaches the necessity of explaining to Western readers
certain terms which even long residence in India often fails to make
clear to Anglo-Indians. Let it be remembered then that the terms _India,
Indian_, have only a geographical reference: they do not signify any
particular race or religion. India is the great triangular continent
bounded on the south-west and south-east by the sea, and shut in on the
north by the Himalayan Mountains. Self-contained though it be, and
easily thought of as a geographical unit, we must not think of India as
a racial, linguistic, or religious unit. We may much more correctly
speak of _the_ European race, language, or religion, than of _the_
Indian.

[Sidenote: A Hindu religion.]

The term _Hindu_ refers to one of the Indian religions, the religion of
the great majority no doubt. It is not now a national or geographical
term. Practically every Hindu is an Indian, and almost necessarily must
be so, but every Indian is not a Hindu. There are Indian Mahomedans,
sixty-two million of them; Indian Buddhists, a few--the great majority
of the Buddhists in the "Indian Empire" being in Burmah, not in India
proper; there are Indian Christians, about three million in number; and
there are Indian Parsees. A Hindu is the man who professes Hinduism.[31]