With the development of the great administrative services, with the substitution of English for the vernacular tongues as the only official language, 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.