FOREWORD
"THE Unchanging East." This picturesque figure of speech has been directly responsible for a vast amount of misconception, and has inspired false theories innumerable. Applied to India the fallacy is not only mischievous but absurd. From time immemorial the great, all-absorbing peninsula has been subjected to wave after wave of foreign invasion. Each newcomer introduced fresh customs, laws, arts, sciences and religious conceptions, in a word the many varying and vivid influences of an unfamiliar civilization. These India assimilated and made her own, much in the same way as she frequently assimilated her conquerors themselves, a process whereby she gained very much more than ever they succeeded in despoiling her of.
At some indefinite period, before the first misty dawn of history, the Aryans forded the Indus, bringing with them metaphysics, and that spiritual mysticism, which, throughout the ages, has rendered the land of their adoption a great psychic power the potentiality of which none may measure. The Greek invasion brought with it the sculptor's art, and the classical style of dress which persists down to the present day. The Persians introduced paint- ing, damascening, embroidery and carpet weaving. Among other things the invading Moghuls imposed 40SS2?
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