of the University Press, who took a keen interest in my book, and granted me every facility that the University Press could offer, and allowed me many special privileges : his kindness has been constant during the three years that the book took to print—the first forme was printed early in 1923, and the last ones in 1926; to Bābu Kālīpada Dās, B.A., Chief Assistant in the University Press, whose expert proof-reading and whose most intelligent interest have saved me from many a typographical error and many a lapsus calami, I have also to record that the compositors in the University Press, Bengali young men all of them, appreciated my labours and gave their most cheerful coöperation. A number of typographical errors nevertheless will appear. For these I am to a large extent responsible, as all the proofs from first to last (there were some- times five or six proofs to read before one forme could be printed) were corrected by me. In the Additives and Corrections at the end of the book I have pointed out such typographical and other errors as have come to my notice, but I fear some more, though I hope they are of a trivial sort, have escaped my scrutiny, and for this 1 crave the indulgence of the reader.
For the Index, I am indebted to Bābu Sukumār Sēn, M.A., Lecturer in Comparative Philology, formerly pupil and now colleague in the University. He very kindly volunteered to prepare an index of all the Bengali words, and thus relieved me of a great burden. As he has been one of the very few serious students of Comparative Philology in our midst, whose enthusiasm for the subject is as great and as sound as his conscientious industry and his scholarly outlook, and who is himself engaged in philological researches, I could not wish this part of the work to be entrusted into better hands. He has the best thanks of his whilom teacher and friend.
I have indicated the scope of my work in a detailed list of Contents, and a further index of the topics discussed, as well as of the names, would have increased the bulk of the work and delayed the publication for a still longer period. The Contents I hope will be found to be enough.
