religion by fire and sword. The Mohammadans of Eastern Bengal, numbering 58 per cent., of the population, represent compulsory conversions effected between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries. Eight hundred years of close contact have abated religious hatred; and occasional outbursts are due to priestly instigation. Hindus borrowed the Zenana system from their conquerors, who imitated them in discouraging widow-remarriages. Caste digs a gulf between followers of the rival creeds, but Mr. Banerjea’s tales prove that a good understanding is possible. It is now imperilled by the curse of political agitation.

In 1526 the Afghan dynasty was subverted by a Mongol chieftain lineally descended from Tamerlane. His grandson Akbar’s reign (1560–1605) was India’s golden age. Akbar the Great was a ruler of the best modern type, who gave his subjects all the essentials of civilisation. But he knew that material prosperity is only the means to an end. Man, said Ruskin, is an engine whose motive power is the soul; and its fuel is love. Akbar called all the best elements in society to his side and linked them in the bonds of sympathy.

Religion in its highest phase is coloured by mysticism which seeks emblems of the hidden source of harmony in every form of life. Anthropomorphic conceptions are laid aside; ritual is abandoned as savouring of magic; hierocracy as part of an obsolete caste system; metaphysical dogma because the Infinite cannot be weighed in the balances of human reason. The truce to fanaticism called by Akbar the Great encouraged a poet and reformer named Tulsi Dása (1532–1623) to point a surer way to salvation. He adored Krishna, the preserving influence incarnate as Ráma, and rehandled Valmiki’s great epic, the Rámáyana, in the faint rays of Christian light which penetrated India during that age of transition. Buddha had proclaimed the brotherhood of man; Tulsi Dása deduced it from the fatherhood of God. The Preserver, having sojourned among men, can understand their infirmities, and is ever ready to save his sinful creatures who call upon him. The duty of leading others to the fold is imposed on believers, for we are all children of the same Father. Tulsi Dása’s Rámáyana is better known in Bihar and the United Provinces than is the Bible in rural England. The people of Hindustan are not swayed by relentless fate, nor by the goddess of destruction. Their prayers are addressed to a God who loves his meanest adorer; they accept this world’s buffetings with resignation: while Ráma reigns all is well.

If the hereditary principle were sound, the Empire cemented together by Akbar’s statecraft might have defied aggression. His successors were debauchees or fanatics. They neglected the army; a recrudescence of the nomad instinct sent them wandering over India with a locust-like horde of followers; Hindus were persecuted, and their temples were destroyed. So the military castes whose religion was threatened, rose in revolt; Viceroys threw off allegiance, and carved out kingdoms for themselves. Within a century of Akbar’s death his Empire was a prey to anarchy.

India had hitherto enjoyed long spells of immunity from foreign interference. Her people, defended by the Himalayan wall and the ocean, were free to develop their own scheme of national life; and world-forces which pierce the thickest crust of custom, reached them in attenuated volume. Their isolation ended when the sea was no longer a barrier; and for maritime nations it is but an extension of their territory. A third invasion began in the sixteenth century, and has continued till our own day. The underlying motive was not economic necessity, nor religious enthusiasm, but sheer lust of gain.

In 1498 Vasco da Gama discovered an all-sea route to India, thus opening the fabulous riches of Asia to hungry Europe. Portuguese, Dutch,