manism_ 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.]

[Sidenote: Br[=a]hmas]

We are not done with this confusing set of terms. _Brahm[=a]_ is the
first person of the Hindu divine triad--the Creator--who along with the
other two persons of the triad, has proceeded from a divine essence,
_Brahma_ or _Brahm_. Brahma is Godhead or Deity: Brahm[=a], is _a_
Deity, a divine _person_ who has emanated from the Godhead, Brahma.
_Br[=a]hmas_ or theists, believers in Brahma, are a religious body that
originated in Bengal in the nineteenth century. Repudiating caste,
idolatry, and transmigration, they are necessarily cut off from
Hinduism. The body is called the Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j, that is, the
Theistic Association. Enough for the present; in their respective places
these distinctions can be more fully gone into.

CHAPTER VII

NEW POLITICAL IDEAS

I. A UNITING INDIA

"There are many nations of the Indians, and they do not speak
the same language."

--HERODOTUS.[34]

[Sidenote: The ideas of citizenship and public questions.]

With modern education and the awakening of the Indian mind have come
entirely new political ideas. That there are public questions has in
fact been discovered; for in India the idea of citizenship, the
consciousness of bei