way of such a step, and what an important influence it might possibly exert on the future of Indian women.
An additional interest was felt in the Maharani as being the daughter of Keshub Chunder Sen, who had visited England some years previously, and who had been known and respected by a large circle of cultivated Englishmen.
The story of the Maharani's life is so closely connected with the most remarkable social and religious movement that has taken place in India in modern times, that it will be necessary to glance briefly at the history of that movement.
Ever since the days when the first great tide of Aryan invasion swept down from the highlands of Central Asia, and drove the aboriginal inhabitants to the hill fastnesses or the forest depths, the plains of India have from time to time been the battle-ground of opposing civilizations, though in almost every case the ultimate victory has rested with the Brahmans. If, on the one hand, the influence of Greek thought may be faintly traced in Buddhism, there can, on the other, be no doubt that the Greek philosophers owed not a little to India; and though the Mahometans established their empire in the very heart of Hindoostan, their attempts at proselytism were hardly successful, and the Mussalmans of India have borrowed far more from the Hindus than these latter have from their monotheistic conquerors
