with the remodelling of judicial administration and procedure on British
lines, with the growth of the liberal professions and of the Press,
their influence constantly found new fields of activity, whilst through
the old traditional channels it continued to permeate those strata of
Hindu society with which the West had established little or no contact.

Nevertheless the spread of Western ideas and habits was bound to loosen
to some extent the Brahmans' hold upon Hindu society, for that hold is
chiefly rooted in the immemorial sanctity of custom, which new habits
and methods imported from the West necessarily tended to undermine.
Scrupulous--and, according to many earnest Englishmen, over-scrupulous--as
we were to respect religious beliefs and prejudices, the influence of
Western civilization could not fail to clash directly or indirectly with
many of the ordinances of Hindu orthodoxy. In non-essentials Brahmanism
soon found it expedient to relax the rigour of caste obligations, as for
instance to meet the hard case of young Hindus who could not travel across
the "black water" to Europe for their studies without breaking caste, or
indeed travel even in their own country in railways and river steamers
without incurring the pollution of bodily contact with the "untouchable"
castes. Penances were at first imposed which had gradually to be lightened
until they came to be merely nominal. Graver issues were raised when such
ancient customs as infant marriage and the degradation of child widows
were challenged. The ferment of new ideas was spreading amongst the
Brahmans themselves. Some had openly discarded their ancestral faith, and
many more were moved to search their own scriptures for some interpretation
of the law less inconsistent with Western standards. It seemed at one
moment as if, under the inspiration of men like Ranade in the Deccan and
Tagore in Bengal, Brahmanism itself was about to take the lead in purging
Hinduism of its most baneful superstitions and bringing it into line with
the philosophy and ethics of the West. But the liberal movement failed to