aside from their traditional calling. In Bengal proper, only about 16
per cent. of the brahmans were following priestly pursuits; in the
Madras Presidency, 11.4 per cent.; and in the Bombay Presidency, 22 per
cent.

[Sidenote: Brahmanism.]

_Brahmanism_ is being employed by a number of recent writers in place of
the older _Hinduism_. Sir Alfred Lyall uses _Brahmanism_ in that sense;
likewise Professor Menzies in his recent book, _Brahmanism and
Buddhism_. Sir Alfred Lyall's employment of the term _Brahmanism_ rather
than _Hinduism_, is in keeping with his description of Hinduism, which
he defines as the congeries of diverse local beliefs and practices that
are held together by the employment of brahmans as priests. The
description is a true one; the term Brahmanism represents what is common
to the Hindu castes and sects; it is their greatest common measure, as
it were. But yet the fact remains that _Hindus_ speak of themselves as
such, not as _Brahmanists_, and it is hopeless to try to supersede a
current name. Sir M. Monier Williams employs the term _Brahmanism_ in a
more limited and more legitimate sense. Dividing the history of the
Hindu religion into three periods, he calls them the stages of Vedism,
Brahmanism, and Hinduism respectively. The first is the period of the
Vedas, or earliest sacred books; the second, of the Brahman philosophy,
fundamentally pantheistic; the third is the period of "a confused tangle
of divine personalities and incarnations." Sir M. Monier Williams'
standard work on the religion of the Hindus is "_Brahmanism and
Hinduism."_ "Hinduism," he tells us, "is Brahmanism modified by the
creeds and superstitions of Buddhists and non-Aryans of all kinds."

[Sidenote: Brahm[=a], Brahma.]