Menu’s administrative regulations have similarly lost their uniformity.  The township or village community, however, has survived.  It is a self-governing unit with its own officials, for the most part hereditary.  In large parts of India the land within the community is regarded as the property of a group of village landowners, who constitute the township, the rest of the inhabitants being their tenants.  The tenants whether they hold from the landowners or from the Government are commonly called Ryots.  An immense proportion of the produce, or its equivalent, has to be paid to the State.  The Zenindars who bear a superficial likeness to English landlords were primarily the Government officials to whom these rents were farmed.  Tenure by military service bearing some resemblance to the European feudal system is found in the Rajput States.  The code of Menu is still the basis of the Hindu jurisprudence.

Religion has been greatly modified.  Monotheism has been supplanted by a gross Polytheism, by the corruption of symbolism.  At the head are the Triad Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the preserver, Siva the destroyer.  Fourteen more principal deities may be enumerated.  To them must be added their female Consorts.  Many of the Gods are held to be incarnations of Vishnu or Siva.  Further, there is a vast host of spirits and demons, good or evil.  By far the most numerous sect is that of the followers of Devi the spouse of Siva.  The religions of the Buddhists and the Jains though differing greatly from the Hindu seemed to have the same origin.

The five languages of Hindustan are of Sanscrit origin, belonging to the Indo-European family.  Of the Deckan languages, two are mixed, while the other three have no connection with Sanscrit.

From Menu’s code it is clear that there was an open trade between the different parts of India.  References to the sea seemed to prove that a coasting trade existed.  Maritime trade was probably in the hands of the Arabs.  The people of the East Coast were more venturesome sailors than those of the West.  The Hindus certainly made settlements in Java.  There are ten nations in India which differ from each other as much as do the nations of Europe, and also resemble each other in much the same degree.  The physical contrast between the Hindustanis and the Bengalis is complete; their languages are as near akin and as mutually unintelligible as English and German, yet in religion, in their notions on Government, in very much of their way of life, they are indistinguishable to the European.

Indian widows sometimes sacrifice themselves on the husband’s funeral pile.  Such a victim is called Sati.  It is uncertain when the custom was first introduced, but, evidently it existed before the Christian era.

A curious feature is that as there are castes for all trades, so there are hereditary thief castes.  Hired watchmen generally belong to these castes on a principle which is obvious.  The mountaineers of Central India are a different race from the dwellers in the plain.  They appear to have been aboriginal inhabitants before the Hindu invasion.  The mountaineers of the Himalayas are in race more akin to the Chinese.