Chapter Xiv. Islam In India : p. 221 CHAPTER XIV ISLAM IN INDIA I THE single continent of the Old World, outside the forests of Africa, is broadly divisible into the agricultural valleys of the East, the sands and steppes of the pastoral belt, and the countries of the European coast-line--and the geographical division is...
Chapter Xvi. On The Loom Of Time : p. 253 CHAPTER XVI ON THE LOOM OF TIME THE essential differences between countries of the Asiatic and European types are as yet but little understood, and a main difficulty in the growth of an understanding is the absence of elements in the English language, embodying any wide power of social...
Chapter Vi. The Immediate Problems : p. 77 CHAPTER VI THE IMMEDIATE PROBLEMS OF THE ORIENTAL WOMAN THE student of Greek vases cannot fail to be struck by the frequent repetition of a single theme--the procession of women to and from the well. In ancient Greece, in Palestine, and in India up to the era of water-taps and street...
Chapter X. The Oriental Experience : p. 168 CHAPTER X THE ORIENTAL EXPERIENCE THE spiritual intellect refuses to believe in any good tidings of dogmas and happenings. It is St. Thomas Aquinas himself who points out that prayer cannot avail to change the will of God, but may, in any given case, be the appointed means of its...
Chapter Iii. Of The Hindu Woman As Wife : p. 29 CHAPTER III OF THE HINDU WOMAN AS WIFE OF the ideal woman of the religious orders the West to-day has very little notion. Teresa and Catherine are now but high-sounding names in history; Beatrice, a true daughter of the Church, is beloved only of the poets; and Joan of Arc, better understood...
Chapter Xv. An Indian Pilgrimage : p. 237 CHAPTER XV AN INDIAN PILGRIMAGE THE old roads of Asia are the footways of the world's ideas. There is a camel-track that crosses the desert from Egypt into "Sooria," broken at the Suez Canal by a ferry. What road in Europe, Roman or barbarian, can compare in charm and pathos with this sandy...
Title Page And Front Matter : p. cover Front Cover THE WEB OF INDIAN LIFE BY THE SISTER NIVEDITA (MARGARET E. NOBLE) LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. HORNBY ROAD, BOMBAY 6 OLD COURT HOUSE STREET, CALCUTTA 167 MOUNT ROAD, MADRAS LONDON AND NEW YORK p. advertisements "BY THE SAME AUTHOR" CRADLE TALES OF HINDUISM With Frontispiece. Crown...
Untitled : This is a collection of essays by Sister Nivedita, Margaret E. Noble, an Anglo-Irish Hindu convert who moved to India and devoted herself to helping poor women of all castes. It includes an appreciative introduction by Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel laureate writer, one of her many friends...
Chapter Ix. The Synthesis Of Indian Thought : p. 137 CHAPTER IX THE SYNTHESIS OF INDIAN THOUGHT When existence was not, nor non-existence, When the world was not, nor the sky beyond, What covered the mist? By whom was it contained? What was in those thick depths of darkness? When death was not, nor immortality, When night was not separate...
Chapter Viii. Noblesse Oblige. A Study : p. 116 CHAPTER VIII NOBLESSE OBLIGE: A STUDY OF INDIAN CASTE A GRAVER intellectual confusion than that caused by the non-translation of the word "Caste" * there has seldom been. The assumed impossibility of finding an equivalent for the idea in English has led to the belief that there is something...
Chapter Xi. The Wheel Of Birth And Death : p. 178 CHAPTER XI THE WHEEL OF BIRTH AND DEATH Reflection has taught me that there is nothing mightier than Destiny... Zeus bows to her power. She surpasses iron in hardness.--EURIPEDES' "Alcestis". Heredity is a condition, not a destiny.--BJRNSON. As a man casts off worn-out clothes, and puts...
Chapter Xii. The Story Of The Great God : p. 191 CHAPTER XII THE STORY OF THE GREAT GOD: SIVA OR MAHADEV Thou that art knowledge itself, Pure, free, ever the witness, Beyond all thought and beyond all qualities, To Thee, the only true Guru, my salutation, Siva Guru! Siva Guru! Siva Guru! "Salutation to Siva, as the Teacher of the Soul"...
Chapter V. The Place Of Woman In The National Life : p. 57 CHAPTER V THE PLACE OF WOMAN IN THE NATIONAL LIFE As the light of dawn breaks on the long curving street of the Indian village the chance passer-by will see at every door some kneeling woman, busied with the ceremony of the Salutation of the Threshold. A pattern, drawn on the pavement...
Chapter I. The Setting Of The Warp : p. 1 CHAPTER I THE SETTING OF THE WARP A HOUSE of my own, in which to eat, sleep, and conduct a girls' school, and full welcome accorded at any hour of day or night that I might choose to invade the privacy of a group of women friends hard by: these were the conditions under which I made my...
Introduction : p. v INTRODUCTION INDIANS, like all other peoples of the world, are naturally susceptible to flattery. But unfortunately they have been deprived of their share of it, even in wholesome measure, both by the Fates presiding at the making of their history as well as by the guests partaking of their...
Chapter Iv. Love Strong As Death : p. 45 CHAPTER IV LOVE STRONG AS DEATH As to the skies their centre is the Polar Star, so to the Eastern home the immovable honour of its womanhood. Here is the secret of that worship of the mother in which all union of the family and all loyalty to its chief are rooted. Woman in the West may...
Chapter Xiii. The Gospel Of The Blessed One : p. 205 CHAPTER XIII THE GOSPEL OF THE BLESSED ONE We worship Thee, Seed of the Universe, Thou one unbroken Soul. We worship Thee, whose footstool is worshipped by the Gods, Thou Lord of the Saints, Physician of the World-disease, To Thy lotus-feet our salutation, O Great Soul! "Hindu form...
Chapter Vii. The Indian Sagas : p. 95 CHAPTER VII THE INDIAN SAGAS UNSEEN, but all pervasive, in the life of every community, is the great company of the ideals. No decalogue has half the influence over human conduct that is exercised by a single drama or a page of narrative. The theory of chivalry interests us, but the "Idylls...
Chapter Ii. The Eastern Mother : p. 17 CHAPTER II THE EASTERN MOTHER THESE eighteen centuries has Europe been dreaming of the idyll of the Oriental woman. For Asia is one, and the wondrous Maiden of all Christian art, from the Byzantines down to yesterday--who is she, of what is she aware, save that she is a simple Eastern...