Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

REPORT ON THE CENSUS Of BURMA;
;
3 l
CHAPTER III.
The Religions of the People.
43. Of the religions of the Province Buddhism has by far the largest number
of professed adherents.
Buddhi m
On the ist March 1901 there
lsm
' '
were 9,184,121 persons who had returned themselves
at the Census or had been returned by the heads of their households as Buddhists,
so that we may take it that 88*6 per cent, of the population of the province, including
the Shan States and the Chin Hills, has nominally, at any rate, embraced the
teachings of Gautama. The total of Buddhists shown at the preceding Census was
6,888,250, but this is practically the return for Burma 'proper only, for the Buddhist
population outside the limits of the eight formally administered divisions
was then a meagre. 175. . For Burma proper the total for the recent Census was
8,223,071, a figure which enables a far truer estimate to be obtained of the
strength of Buddhism at the beginning and at the end of the decade.'
Subsidiary Table No. III-A appended to this chapter (General distribution of
Population by Religion) shows that the actual increase in the Buddhist population
of Burma proper during the past ten years is one of 19 per cent., but that,
whereas in 1891 in every ten thousand of the population 9,056 persons on. an
average professed the Buddhist faith, the proportion would now be found to be
only 8,910, or 146 lower. For the whole of Burma the contrast of proportions
can only be carried back to 189 1. In Lower Burma, however, we can make a
further comparison and can learn from Subsidiary Table No. III-B that during the
ten years 1881— 1891 the Buddhist population of Lower Burma increased by 24
per cent. For the following decade, the one with which we are immediately concerned,
the Lower Burma figure of increase, is the same as that given above for
Upper and Lower Burma combined (19 per cent.) ; that is to say, it is lower than
the growth of the previous decennium. Let us contrast one more set of figures.
In 1901 in Lower Burma 8,533 persons out of every ten thousand were Buddhists.
In 1 891 Buddhism numbered 8,680 adherents out of every ten thousand people
and in 1881 no less than 8,702. We thus see in Lower Burma not only that Buddhism
has not increased as rapidly as the other religions in the aggregate, but also
that during the past twenty years its actual rate of growth has diminished. That
its progress should not be marked by such leaps and bounds as is that of the immigrant
religions is natural enough. Why in the decade 188 1—1891 the Buddhists
of Lower Burma should have increased by 24 per cent, and in the following ten
years by only 19 per cent, is not so clear. The cause probably is the return to
their homes during the first period of ten years of the. Upper Burman Buddhists
who, during the disturbances that followed on the annexation, sought a temporary
asylum in the Lower Province, and for the time being swelled the ranks of Buddhism
there. For the whole Province, including the Shan States and the Chin
Hills, the proportion of Buddhists to every ten thousand of the population is 8,862.
44. Of Buddhism as a whole this is not the place to write. All that need im-
_ mediately concern us
.
here are the main features of
Burmese Buddh.sm.
thg fakh ag actually pro fesSed in the province, in other
Words, the practical working Buddhism of Burma. But first let us note that
Burmese Buddhism, whatever it may now have become, was originally an amalgamation
of the tenets of the two main schools of Buddhistic thought, the Northern
and the Southern, which are more or less, though not exactly, connoted by the expressions
Mahdydna and Hindydna. In his Studies in Eastern Religions Mr.
A. S. Geden says:
" The Buddhism of Burma is therefore certainly composite, and its character is perhaps
best explained in the light of a fusion of Northern and Southern elements which met and
exercised a mutual influence in the valley of the Irawadi."
In his 1891 Report Mr. Eales discusses the two theories regarding the route
by which Buddhism was introduced into Burma^ and inclines to the view that it