Bengal and when even a nervous, overworked Viceroy enjoyed occasional nights untroubled by dreams of massacre and rebellion and the Seven Holy Rivers red with English blood.
He studied jurisprudence in the legendary days, when the dark-skinned Indian students who flashed the sharp colors of their turbans in the gray maze of Lincoln's Inn were apt to be more royalist than the king.
And Krishnavana was of Young-India. He had indeed a written pedigree reaching back to the time when the East was slowly emerging from its chrysalis, while the West was still in the throes of primitive erosion. But he freely acknowledged the power of the white-skinned Helots who had become masters overnight, while Asia was having one of her periodical naps.
And so he plucked with both hands at the fruit of the tree of Western wisdom; he steeped himself in English literature, history and political ideals; he deposed the many-armed, lust-scabbed gods of his ancestors and set up in their place brand-new, neat little idols, labeled Burke, John Stuart Mill, Topinard, and Universal-Brotherhood-Regardless-of-Race, Faith and Color.
