There is an old and widespread opinion that India is the “Country without a History”. And this idea is one of the reasons of its having become wrapped in that veil of mystic twilight in which the Romantic Period of the last century saw it, given up only to religious and philosophical speculation. Perhaps this veil has not yet fallen from the whole of its antiquity. It is true research has enabled us to attain some knowledge of the history of many dynasties, wars and social revolutions, religious struggles and literary feuds; nevertheless, all this seems to be merely a ripple on the surface, a waving of billows above the calm depth of a population that never changes its manner of life. Again and again we are told that much of the oldest tradition has survived in India up to the present day. And this is certainly true, for there is no land so fitted to serve as a place of refuge for past forms of civilization and culture as this country is, great as a small continent, with all its contrasts of plains, deserts, and sultry jungle, of mild hill climate and exuberant tropical vegetation. But this statement evades the essential facts. In every country, side by side with the latest forms of civilization, its oldest traditions are still alive, and though they may be of interest to the folklorist, it is not the task of the historian to trace cultural developments in their atavist remains, but in the beginnings and the culminating points of their evolution; and these have always been supported by the leading classes, and the history of them has been more or less that of the reigning civilization of their time.