DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0003
PREFACE.
My aim in the following pages has been partially
stated in the introductory observations. It has been
my earnest endeavour to give such an account of a
very dry and complex subject as shall not violate
scholarlike accuracy, and yet be sufficiently read-
able to attract general readers.
The part now published only deals with one half of
the whole programme, but it will be found to consti-
tute a separate and independent work, and to comprise
the three most important and difficult phases of Indian
religious thought — Vedism, Brahmanism, and Hin-
duism.
That the task, so far completed, has been no easy
one will be readily admitted, and I have given the
best proof of my sense of its difficulty by not ventur-
ing to undertake it without long preparation.
It is now exactly forty-three years since I began
the study of Sanskrit as an undergraduate at Balliol
College, Oxford; my teacher, at that time, being my
illustrious predecessor in the Boden Chair, Horace
Hayman Wilson; and^ it is exactly forty-two years
since I addressed myself to Arabic and Persian under
the tuition of the Mlrza Muhammad Ibrahim, one of
the ablest of the Oriental Professors at the East India
a %
My aim in the following pages has been partially
stated in the introductory observations. It has been
my earnest endeavour to give such an account of a
very dry and complex subject as shall not violate
scholarlike accuracy, and yet be sufficiently read-
able to attract general readers.
The part now published only deals with one half of
the whole programme, but it will be found to consti-
tute a separate and independent work, and to comprise
the three most important and difficult phases of Indian
religious thought — Vedism, Brahmanism, and Hin-
duism.
That the task, so far completed, has been no easy
one will be readily admitted, and I have given the
best proof of my sense of its difficulty by not ventur-
ing to undertake it without long preparation.
It is now exactly forty-three years since I began
the study of Sanskrit as an undergraduate at Balliol
College, Oxford; my teacher, at that time, being my
illustrious predecessor in the Boden Chair, Horace
Hayman Wilson; and^ it is exactly forty-two years
since I addressed myself to Arabic and Persian under
the tuition of the Mlrza Muhammad Ibrahim, one of
the ablest of the Oriental Professors at the East India
a %