ABSTRACT
WE would fain have mingled here the history of woman with that of Ancient India; described the part which
she played in it, and the influence that she exercised over it ; but the leading thread is missing. Neither the pen of the scribe, nor the voice of monuments relate events which must have agitated Indian society at its commencement. The Hebrew people have regularly set forth the course of their destinies in that Book, which to-day is still for us preeminently the Holy Book. China has opened to us her valuable and trustworthy annals. Egypt and Assyria have engraved upon stone and marble the phases of their political existence. Greece has collected the traditions of the nations she had conquered. India, alone of Oriental nations, has guarded the secrets of her past, and the researches of strangers or foreigners who have attempted to wrest it from her have only ended in vague or erroneous notions. The great epics and the Puranas contain, it is true, the germ of a history, but how many veils must be uplifted before their records can be disengaged from the mysterious mist enveloping them! Composed under Brahmanical influence, the sacerdotal idea is dominant in them, and, in the allegorical tales, arranges events so as to suit its designs. In the Puranas, above all, what deceptive enigmas are found! When we think an historical figure is discovered, we find instead a fictitious being or one purely cosmical. How, without any other guide but a fabulous chronology, can truth be distinguished from myth? And even when living personages and historical facts, which inspired the authors of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, have at last been reached, how can the materials
for serious criticism be gathered from such exaggeration of form? Perhaps it is a task reserved for modern erudition. Let us endeavour to seize a few traits of the ancient traditions, and without vainly pretending to despoil them of their legendary aspect, let us seek for those female characters who preceded the heroines of the great epic poems.
