THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1378, 2 March 1912, Page 9

THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA.

LATEST STATISTICS. In India, as well as in Canada and Ireland, everybody's religion Ims to bo stated at the time of the decennial census. The figures for the census of last year are now available; but of a population of 315 millions—black, brown, and white—just 17 persons wore found to describe themselves as "Atheists." Perhaps it may bo thought that this 'remarkable result is due to a general preference for the vaguer term "Agnostic." But the "Agnostics" aro returned as 50 persons out of a total population of 315 millions. And of these 50 only fivo reside- in India proper; the remaining 45 live in Burma, and, it niov be conjectured, are Chinese. The groat Hindu community accounts for 217,580,020 of the peoplo, and thev increase at the rate of about a million a year. The Mohammedan;; show an increase which is relatively greater, and are now returned as numbering GG,G23,i12. 'Die Buddhists, who bto nlmost entirely confinfd to Burma, number something over ten millions. The Sikhs, in spile of tho many troubles of the Punjab, have increased thei-- numbers in tho ton years from 2,200.000 to something over three millions. The Parsecs, though their name is so familiar in England, number only 100,000, or less than three per 10,000 of tho whole population. The Jews aro put down as 21,000. Tho classified figures showing the numbers of tho various Christian denominations aro not yet published, but that Christianity as a whole has made great aixl continuous progress is beyond doubt. At the time of tho first general census in 18S1, thero were 1,802,C,3l Christians in India: now. thirty years Inter, there are 3;87G,19G.-Tho "Tablet" (London).