About the beginning of the nineteenth century another dialect of Hindustani, called _Hindi_, also gained a literary standing. It contains much less of Persian than Urdu does, leaning rather to Sanscrit; it is written in the deva-nagari or Sanscrit character; is associated with Hindus and with the eastern half of Hindustan; whereas Urdu is written in the Persian character, and is associated with Mahomedans and the western half of Hindustan.[32] [Sidenote: The Brahmans] Another series of terms are likewise a puzzle to the uninitiated. To Westerns, the _brahmans_[33] are best known as the priests of the Hindus; more correctly, however, the name _brahman_ signifies not the performer of priestly duties, but the caste that possesses a monopoly of the performance. The brahman caste is the Hindu _Tribe of Levi_. Every accepted Hindu priest is a brahman, although it is far from being the case that every brahman is a priest. As a matter of fact, at the Census of 1901 it was found that the great majority of brahmans have turned 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.] [Sidenote: Br[=a]hmas]