PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION.
THE increasing interest felt in India and Indian literature has led to such a demand for the present work, that it was found necessary to begin printing a second edition almost immediately after the issue of the first. I have, therefore, been unable to avail myself of the suggestions contained in the Reviews which have hitherto appeared. Nevertheless, a few unimportant alterations have been made in the present edition; and through the kindness of Professor W. D. Whitney, who lost no time in sending me some valuable notes, I have been able to improve the chapter on Astronomy at p. 180.
Being on the eve of quitting England for a visit to the principal seats of learning in India, I have for obvious reasons deferred addressing myself to the fuller treatment of those portions of Sanskrit literature of which I have merely given a summary in Lecture XV.
India, with all its immutability, is now making such rapid strides in education, that a Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, if he is to keep himself up to the level of advancing knowledge and attainments, ought to communicate personally with some of those remarkable native Pandits whose intellects have been developed at our great Indian Colleges and Universities, and who owe their eminence in various branches of learning to the advantages they have enjoyed under our Government.
In undertaking so long a journey my only motives are a sense of what is due from me to the Boden Chair, a desire to extend my sphere of work, a craving
