THE magnificent conceptions revealed in the pages of the older
works in Sanskrit literature show the great imaginative powers possessed by the very early feminists. Violence in feminism does not appeal to the Indian woman ; that stage was long ago left behind. The " artless wiles and guileful smiles " treatment has been the favourite method of dealing with the monster man during many long centuries, and out of the fruit of bitter experience have grown the man-made stories of " poison damsels " and " vulpine humans in beauty's dress." The siren whose lightest kiss was (and is) death, is not a concrete person in the Indian mind, she is symbolical of the caressing hand which magically holds a curved knife whose blade will cut out life from the heart. " Beware of winning a beauty too easily, belike she is a snake to twist about thy throat or a wolf to feed upon thy heart." Life is not a trifle to be cast lightly aside nor is it so essential a thing as to demand ceaseless care, but " if you love life then love no woman." Mlle. Bader's book is destined to guide many a student along the road to an appreciation of the Indian outlook on life in general and female existence in particular. The translator has laid under a deep obligation all those readers who have neither time nor inclination to take up the study of Sanskrit, but who are not content to rest ignorant of the vast literature of the ancient Indians. Many books on India and Indian thought yearly see the light, it is but rarely that one with such fidelity and understanding makes its appearance. Readers of either sex can be assured, not merely of interest, but of fascina- tion in the pages of this book.
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