The book is the preface to a work initially entrusted to Sister Nivedita, a prominent disciple of Swami Vivekananda. It highlights her unique position as a bridge between Western social science and Indian spiritual life.

The excerpt praises her influential books, The Web of Indian Life and Kali the Mother, for explaining the complexities of Hindu society and the "Mother-cult" to the West with profound depth. Beyond being an interpreter, she is credited with inspiring a generation of Indian students to move away from Anglicization and toward progress rooted in their own national ideals and art. Due to her untimely death in 1911, the text notes that the current volume had to be completed by another hand.