By the manner in which the Greek writers speak of the two religious parties, into which Alexander found the country divided, it can scarcely be doubted that the Buddhists at that period were far more numerous, and more extensively diffused throughout India, than they are at the present day, and this inference is even corroborated by many historical vouchers of the Indians themselves. Although the Buddhists are now but an obscure sect of dissenters in the Western Peninsula, they are still tolerably numerous in several of its provinces; while, on the other hand, they have complete possession of the whole Eastern and Indo-Chinese peninsula. Besides this sect, there are many other religious dissenters even in Hindostan; such for instance, as the sect of _Jains_, who steer a middle course between the followers of the old and established religion of Brahma, and the Buddhists; for, like the latter, they reject the Indian division and system of castes. Even the established religion itself is divided into three parties, which, though they do not form precisely separate sects, still are marked by no inconsiderable differences in their opinions, views, and conduct: according as each of these parties acknowledges the supremacy, or renders a nearly exclusive worship to one or other of the three principal Hindoo divinities, Brahma, Vishnoo, and Siva. And, although in the empire of the great Mogul, the number of the Mahometan conquerors, and of those that accompanied them into India, was very small, compared with the mass of the native population, yet, after the total destruction of this empire, there still remain several millions of Mahometans in the country. Even the Persian language, or a corrupt dialect of it, which these conquerors introduced, is still in many places in use as the language of ordinary life, trade, and business; in the same way as the Portuguese in the maritime and commercial cities of India, or the Lingua Franca in our eastern factories, serves as the usual and convenient medium of communication.