Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

1
REPORT ON THE CENSUS OF BURMA.
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suredly not to destroy. Nothing that does not run directly counter to the few"
positive precepts of the religion can be said to be proscribed. For the infidel and5
heretic the. way of peace has no terrors. The Burman has added to his Animism 1
just so much Buddhism as suits him and with infantile inconsequence draws' !
solace from each in turn. I know of no better definition of the religion of the great'
bulk of the people of the province than that given by Mr. Eales in his 189
Census Report, "a thin veneer of philosophy laid over the main structure of Shamanistic
belief." The facts are here exactly expressed. Animism supplies -the
solid" constituents that hold the faith together, Buddhism the superficial polish.
Far be it from me to underrate the value of that philosophic veneer. It has done
all that a polish can do to smooth, to beautify and to brighten, but to the end of time
it will never be anything more than a polish. In the hour of great heart-searching?
it is profitless as the Apostle's sounding brass. It is then that the Burman
falls back upon his primaeval beliefs. Let but the veneer be scratched, the crude
animism that lurks below must out. Let but his inmost vital depths be touched/
the Burman stands forth an Animist confessed. As the author of The Soul of a
People says when commenting on and justifying the outward" aspects of the faith
of the people of Burma—
'' For the outsider judges a religion as he judges everything else in the world * *
*
. He looks to acts as proofs of beliefs, to lives as the ultimate effects of thoughts.
And he finds out very quickly that the sacred books of a people can never be taken as show- '.
ing more than approximately their real beliefs. Always through the embroidery of the new
creed he will find the foundation of an older faith, of older faiths, perhaps, and, below
these again, other beliefs that seem to be part of no system but to be the outcome of the
great fear that is in the world."
\
48. Of the population of the province a total of 399,390 persons only returned
. . themselves as professed adherents of that faith to
which practically the whole country really owes allegiance.
In 1891 the grand -total of Animists was 168,450, but of these only a
single male represented the population outside the limits of Burma proper. In"
1.901 the spirit-worshippers of the Shan States and the Chin Hills figured for the
first time in the returns. They numbered 161,882 and accounted for the greater
part of the difference between the totals for the two Censuses. Subsidiary Tables'
Nos. IIIAandHIB would appear to show one thing that the average reader would
hardly expect ; that is, that there were more than twice as many Animists in Lower
as in Upper Burma at the recent Census, the totals being 158,552 and 78,956. The'
Upper Burma Religion total, however, it must be borne in mind, excludes the inhabitants
of the estimated tracts, who; we may assume, were spirit-worshippers almost
to a man. Had religion been returned in these areas we should in all probability have"
found that the Upper Burma Animsts exceeded a lakh in number ;
in other words,
that they were about two-thirds of the strength of their co-religionists in the South.
In Lower Burma the proportion of Animists to the total population of ail religions
1$ steadly dwindling. In 1881 it averaged 384111 every ten thousand souls ;
in 189
only 32*0. The average has now fallen to 281. For all that there is not the actual
decrease in the total of Nat-worshippers in Lower Burma which Mr. Eales anticipated
in paragraph 59 of his 1891 Report. What dimunition there is is only relative."
In Burma proper the proportion of Animists has risen since 1891 from 221 to 257
per ten thousand. This growth, which is more apparent than real, is accounted
for by the inclusion within the scope of the operations of tracts mainly inhabited"
by. sp'rit-worshippers which at the previous Census were not enumerated. For the"
whole of the province, including the Shan States and the Chin Hills, the proportion
of "Animists is now -385 in every ten thousand of the population. Spirit-worship:
thusranks numerically second to Buddhism.
; 49.; In Burma the Animist is ordinarily known as a " Nat-worshipper." The
.- ... Chinese, with the exception of such as returned them-
,- Aniwisnr and ancestor wor-shrp.
selves definitely as Christians, Buddhists orMus-
-almaris,. have been included in this category. .
The Burmans have no specific
term for the ancestor worship.which forms the. basis of the Chinese' religions, and
indeed in their, essenceTaoism and Confucianism differ but little from the national
indeed in their essence Taoism and Confucianism differ but.-little from the. national
worship of the peolpe of Burma.
" The underlying idea of a spirit-world peopled