CRADLE TALES OF HINDUISM,
Cradle Tales of Hinduism. By the Sister Nivedita (Margaret E. Noble). With Frontispiece. (Longmans and Co. 5s.)—The generation that was nurtured on;" Old Deccan Days" must now be well on in middle life, and these delightful "cradle tales" are adapted for older children than those to whom the fairy-story is still on the border-line between truth and fancy. Miss Noble has aimed at reproducing for the English schoolroom and nursery those portions of the Mahabharata and the Samayana that form the first lessons of Indian life :— " All over the country in every province, especially during the winter season, audiences of Hindus and Mohammedans gather round the Brahmin story-teller at nightfall and listen to his rendering of the ancient tales. The Mohammedans of Bengal have their own version of the ltrahabharata. And in the life of every child among the Hindu higher castes there comes a time when, evening after evening, hour after hour, his grandmother pours into his ears the memories of old."
The truth of Kipling's well-known ballad, "East is East and West is West," could not be more strongly exemplified than by a comparison of this book with the English poet's "jungle stories." The snakes and monkeys, the forest boy and the villagers, are present in both; but in the legends which Miss Noble has brought to us across the sea they are steeped in an atmosphere which no European imagination can ever counterfeit. There was never any period in our history when it was more essential to get, if possible, somewhere near the working of that strange Indian mind which piques and baffles the inquirer the closer he seems to approach it. "Let me make a country's songs and I care not who makes its laws," is a saying which may be extended to its fairy-tales. If we are to understand our fellow-subjects in the East we must begin at the beginning, and this pleasant intro- duction to the lore of the Hindu cradle will help where more ambitious books would fail.
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