These ambitions affect the fortunes and the future of some three hundred millions of humbler Indians, at present only linked by the accident of common British rule, and, so far as they are Hindus, by a common Hindu sentiment. [Illustration: _Plate I_ Mahābrāhmans (_Mirzapur district_)] In the following chapters, it will be my business to tell, as briefly and clearly as possible, of (1) the Ethnology and Castes of the Indian Peoples; (2) the Languages of India; (3) the Religions of India. I hope what I have already said will sufficiently show why these three subjects are treated in this order. CHAPTER I RACE AND CASTE Curiously enough, the systematic enquiry into the physical race-characteristics of the Indian peoples was due to a daring assertion by Mr Nesfield, of the Indian Educational Service, to the effect that, so far as physical signs go, there is practically only one Indian race and one Indian caste. This was a hasty but quite natural generalisation from experience of a part of India, the United Provinces, which is in the heart of the Aryan settlement in the Gangetic _do-āb_ (the area between "two rivers"). Here caste has long been a settled institution, and innumerable sub-castes, professional or the result of outcasting, have come into existence. Mr Nesfield was driven by his local observations to assert the unity of one great Indian race; he denied the truth of "the modern doctrine which divides the population of India into Aryan and aboriginal": he sturdily declared that it was impossible to distinguish a scavenger from a Brāhman, save by costume and other artificial and accidental marks. Even in the United Provinces this uncompromising statement awoke dissent. In other parts of India, as, for instance, on the north-eastern frontier, the crowded home of many races and languages, dissent was eager and loud. It was evident, on the face of it, that Mr Nesfield's new dogma was based on too limited a study. Caste, for him, was a mere matter of hereditary function and profession; since most castes in the sacred "midland" of Hinduism have assumed that guise. There is no reason to suppose that castes have usually or even often been formed as professional guilds. They come into being for many reasons, some of which will be presently stated; and in civilised communities, where the division of labour and specialisation of professional skill are well established, a caste gradually assumes some distinctive means of livelihood. But on the borders of Hinduism, where the Hindu social system is still assimilating new races, instances abound of racial castes, tribal castes, perhaps even (though this is a more doubtful matter) totemistic castes.