Of the loves of Nala and Damayanti it is difficult to write in few words.  From the opening scene where the golden-winged swans carry Nala’s words of love to Damayanti in the garden, sporting at sunset with her maidens, the old tale moves on with beauty and with pathos.  The Swayamvara, or Self Choice, harks back to the time when the Indian princess might herself choose among her suitors.  Gods and men compete for Damayanti’s hand among scenes as bright and stately as the lists of King Arthur’s Court, until the princess, choosing her human lover, throws about his neck the garland that declares her choice.  Happy years follow, and the birth of children.  Then the scene changes to exile and desertion.  Through it all moves the heroine, sharing her one garment with her unworthy lord, “thin and pale and travel-stained, with hair covered in dust,” yet never faltering until her husband, sane and repentant, is restored to home and children and throne.

So the ancient folk-lore goes on, in epic and in drama, with the woman ever the heroine of the tale.  True it is that her virtues are limited; obedience, chastity, and an unlimited capacity for suffering largely sum them up.  They would scarcely satisfy the ambitions of the new woman of to-day; yet some among us might do well to pay them reverence.

Those were the high days of Indian womanhood.  Then, as the centuries passed, there came slow eclipse.  Lawgivers like Manu[6] proclaimed the essential impurity of a woman’s heart; codes and customs began to bind her with chains easy to forge and hard to break.  Later followed the catastrophe that completed the change.  The Himalayan gateways opened once more and through them swarmed a new race of invaders, passing out of those barren plains of Central Asia that have been ever the breeding grounds of nations and swooping upon India’s treasures.  In one hand the green flag of the Prophet, in the other the sword, these followers of Muhammad sealed for a millennium the end of woman’s high estate.

All was not lost without a mighty struggle.[7] From those days come the tales of Rajput chivalry—­tales that might have been sung by the troubadours of France.  Rajput maidens of noble blood scorned the throne of Muslim conquerors.  Litters supposed to carry captive women poured out warriors armed to the teeth.  Men and women in saffron robes and bridal garments mounted the great funeral pyre, and when the conquering Allah-ud-din entered the silent city of Chitore he found no resistance and no captives, for no one living was left from the great Sacrifice of Honorable Death.