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