The ground had already been prepared for this transformation by spadework in the Bengalee Press conducted by two of Tilak's chief disciples in Bengal.

One was Mr.Bepin Chandra Pal, the bold exponent of _Swaraj_, whose programme I have already quoted.
The other was Mr.Arabindo Ghose, one of the most remarkable figures that Indian unrest has produced.

Educated in England, and so thoroughly that when he returned to India he found it difficult to express himself in Bengali, he is not only a high-caste Hindu, but he is one of those Hindu mystics who believe that, by the practice of the most extreme forms of _Yoga_ asceticism, man can transform himself into a super-man, and he has constituted himself the high priest of a religious revival which has taken a profound hold on the imagination of the emotional youth of Bengal.

His ethical gospel is not devoid of grandeur.

It is based mainly on the teachings of Krishna to Arjuna as revealed in the _Bhagvad Gita_, and I cannot hope to define its moral purpose better than by borrowing the following sentence from Mrs.Besant's introduction to her translation of "The Lord's Song":-- It is meant to lift the aspirant from the lower levels of renunciation where objects are renounced, to the loftier heights where desires are dead and where the Yogi dwells in calm and ceaseless contemplation, while his body and mind are actively employed in discharging the duties that fall to his lot in life.
This reading of the _Bhagvad Gita_ differentiates the newer Indian conception of renunciation, which does not exclude but rather prescribes the duty of service to society, from the older conception, which was concerned merely to procure the salvation of the individual by his complete detachment from all mundane affairs.