<p>First published in 1874 this collection of language specimens covers the dialects and languages of several tribes of Bengal Central Provinces and eastern frontier which indicate Aryan Dravidian and aboriginal linguistic types. In his Introduction the author hopes that the number and variety of specimens including those of lesser-known languages and the abundant raw material will enable a greater degree of comparison and prove to be beneficial to a philologist. The selection of words and phrases in this work provide scope to test radical affinities and tribes can be better classified than done hitherto. Indeed this was the very objective of the author in undertaking this work. On the basis of the language and dialect specimens Campbell has shown that most of the aboriginal tribes of the Central Provinces and from western Bengal are radically associated to the Dravidians. Likewise a group of languages quite comparable to each other that are found in the border areas of eastern Bengal Assam Cachar and the surrounding lower hills are closely cognate with that of a large number of tribes that have very different names and live under very different conditions. He has shown more such instances. Spread over eighteen chapters Campbell has covered the different regions and various tribes presented the language specimens in tabular format with the English translation of the word or phrase given alongside in a column. About the Author George Campbell was an officer who served under the British government in India.</p>

<p>In the summer of 1901 a visit to the Kullu Valley brought the author face-to-face with people who still pay reverence to the serpent demons known from early Indian literature. In the course of his subsequent wanderings through the western Himalayas he had ample opportunity for collecting information regarding the serpent worship or Naga. Other nations are known to practice this form of animal worship but it is impossible to find any other place where it takes such a prominent place in literature folklore and art as it does in India. The existence of this cult may be estimated to be no less than three millennia. During this vast space of time the deified serpents have haunted the imagination of the people of India. Besides the three chief repositories of serpent-lore – the Mahabharata the Jatakas and the Rajatarangini have been fully utilized. About the Author J. Ph. Vogel (1871-1958) was a Dutch Sanskritist who worked with the Archaeological Survey of India from 1901 to 1914 and later as a Professor in the University of Leiden. As an archaeologist he participated in excavations in Gandhara¸ the Punjab Hill States Kushinagar and Mathura.</p>

<p>This book contains reminiscences of Rev. James Kennedy who was a missionary of the London Missionary Society during his long residence in the North Western regions of India and Kumaon (present day Uttarakhand). Rev. Kennedy had landed in Calcutta on 19 January 1839 en route to Benares where he had been appointed for doing missionary work. From 1868 to 1877 he was posted in Kumaon where the Mission did some pioneering work including opening of schools female education building a leper’s asylum sanitation work etc. The amount of information it contains descriptive social evangelistic missions and even political aspect is astounding. The chief value of the book is the picture of missionary labour it presents – its trials and difficulties its results rewards and prospects. The book also contains some rare illustrations.</p>

<p>The book makes a systematic attempt to explore the environmental history of Darjeeling during the British colonial period (1835-1947) which profoundly transformed the environment of Darjeeling by intro­ducing commercial control over the natural resources. After the foundation of Darjeeling as the hill station for the low-income groups of British administration living in Bengal and Burma the place was transformed into a social recreational and commercial centre for the British authorities. The railway construction boom introduction of tea plantation the growth of a commercial market for timber and increasing demands for fuel and building materials depleted the forest cover. The less explored regions of Darjeeling attracted the adventure-thirsty Britons. A series of investigations were made on the marketable prod­ucts the condition of roads and quality of soil of these regions. The ethnographic geological botanical and zoological study of the Darjeeling was started by the colonial officials in the nineteenth century. In the early stage of expansion of colonialism in Asia Africa Australia and South America the European colonizers faced numerous problems in dealing with the untouched nature. The accumulation of the know­ledge of surrounding regions and proper management of the labour became essential for the colonial authority for transformation of the existing environment of the densely forested tropical colonies. About the Author Dipanwita Dasgupta is an Assistant Professor in Department of History Cooch Behar Panchana Barma University. Her field of special­ization include economic history of modern India. She takes particular interest in environmental history and comparative theology. Also she has to her credit a good number of research papers published in dif­ferent journals.</p>

<p>This book offers a deeper historical context to the interplay between the physical fortunes of climate and weather and the ways in which the Tamil society experienced it in the medieval age. It touches upon the rainfall famines and droughts storms and cyclones earthquakes floods and tsunamis temperature and atmospheric pressure of the modern age noticed by the Catholic and Protestant missionaries Euro­pean traders travellers the East India Company officials and servants using scientific instruments. Based on a greater variety of Tamil sources missionary letters and reports British and French colonial records the monograph presents the reading of history through the lens of climate and provides a more complete picture of Tamil landscape and environment in South India from the ninth to the nineteenth century. About the Author S. Jeyaseela Stephen is Directeur Institut pour études Indo-Européennes. He was Professor of Maritime History (2001-2013) at Visva-Bharati University Santiniketan. He is the author of numerous books on maritime history of early modern India his publications in­clude The Coromandel Coast and its Hinterland: Economy Society and Political System ad 1500-1660; Expanding Portuguese Empire and the Tamil Economy (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries). He received the best book prize of 1999 from the Government of Tamil Nadu. His books have been translated into Chinese Danish German and Tamil.</p>

<p>This book is the first English translation of Candayan the pioneer work in a long tradition of Indian-Sufi love narratives. The story was adapted from an oral epic Chanaini popular in the Awadhi speaking region of north India in the fourteenth century. The early manuscripts of Candayan though com­posed in the Awadhi dialect were recorded in the Persian script. Each stanza-like unit is introduced by a phrase or sentences in the Persian language style making it necessary for a reader to know the Persian script and language as well as the Awadhi dialect. This somewhat limits the access to fully explore Candayan. In addition to this the esoteric interpret­ation which is the distinguishing feature that gives the Indian-Sufi masnavi literature its unique identity was also not yet realized. Candayan deserves to be celebrated and recognized because it marks the beginning of the indigenizing process of the masnavi in India and served as a model for this literary genre for the next 540 years. A serious study of Maulana Daud’s Candayan composed in 1379 in the reign of Firoz Shah Tughlaq did not begin until well into the twentieth century because only a few pages of its manuscript folios were discovered at a time in various academic institutions and museums around the world. Candayan is a fascinating study of the blending of the features of the Persian masnavi with the features of the Hindi premakhyan narratives and the features of the medieval Jain literature. Even today annually in the Mahakoshala region Candayan is presented in the form of drama and in the folk-song and play forms. About the Author Naseem A. Hines has taught medieval and modern Hindi literature and Urdu prose and poetry at the University of Washington Washington University in St. Louis Harvard University Boston University Wellesley College and the University of British Columbia. She lives in Seattle now where she continues to teach Sufi poetry.</p>

<p>Ancient History of the Deccan is a well-researched study of Deccan region during the years c. 261 bc dating from the Kalinga War onwards to approximately c. ad 610. There are almost no historical records documenting the period anterior to Asoka while several historical documents are found covering the history of the Deccan from ad 610 onwards i.e. from the reign of Pulakesin II. Thus this book attempts at filling the void caused by either inadequate information or complete lack of it or even if available these are sketchy and presented poorly thereby posing a challenge for those interested in studying this period. The documents that do exist on these nine centuries portray an era that was glorious both historically and culturally and therefore warrant a comprehensive study. The book has covered the areas in the Deccan that falls within the Narmada and Mahanadi in the north; Bay of Bengal in the east; the Arabian Sea in the west; and Nilgiri Hills and southern Pennar in the south. The book begins very briefly with Asoka and then Kharavela of Kalinga; the Sakas Pallavas dynasties of Central eastern and western Deccan; and dynasties of the Kanarese districts. In this in-depth study the author has referred to a wide range of sources including Vincent Smith Prof. Rapson inscriptions on coins in caves plates ‘Epigraphica Indica’ Archaeological Survey of Western India journals and many more. About the Author Gabriel Jouveau-Dubreuil was an archaeologist and professor and has published books on south Indian history and architecture both in French and English. V.S. Swaminadha Dikshitar was a professor of English Colonial College Pondicherry and has translated and authored numerous books.</p>

<p>This book is about a ‘Small Island’ namely Mauritius in the southwestern Indian Ocean. It is also about a ‘Large Ocean’ the Indian Ocean world – its peoples histories and cultures. It casts down a light on the life of an island through what is known not only about the island itself but also through what is known about the wider Indian Ocean world. It is also about the Indian Ocean world in that it focuses on an island which in many senses and dimensions is not only a model of but in some respects also a model for wider developments and features of relevance to the Indian Ocean world as a whole. Chapter one provides some basic background information on first the island itself and secondly on the ocean in question. This introductory chapter concludes with some remarks on ‘Indian Ocean Studies’ more generally and on the methodological question of how to study an ocean. Chapter two deals with the issue of ‘islandness’ and looks closer at the overall world of Indian Ocean islands. Chapter three investigates ‘piracy’ in the South-Western Indian Ocean from around 1680 to 1750 while Chapter four addresses the issue of epidemic diseases that have violently influenced the history of Mauritius from the start of its settlement. Chapter five looks at demographic issues and at concomitant questions of identity politics in Mauritius today. Chapter six discusses Mauritius’s role as a maritime hub over the three centuries of its existence also addressing present-day non-maritime manifestations of the island as a hub. Chapter seven investigates the significance of tourism for Mauritians not only in economic but also in socio-cultural concerns. Chapter eight concludes this book with a view on the politics of cultural heritage including the Séga dance or world-heritage sites remembering African slavery and Indian indentured labour in post-colonial Mauritius. About the Author Burkhard Schnepel is a Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology at the Martin Luther University Halle Germany. His main theoretical and thematic interests are political rituals in India especially in Orissa and the history of the Indian Ocean world especially Mauritius. Among his more recent books include Connectivity in Motion: Small Islands in the Indian Ocean World (Palgrave 2018 co-edited with E.A. Alpers); Travelling Pasts: The Politics of Cultural Heritage in the Indian Ocean World (Brill 2019 co-edited with Tansen Sen); and The King’s Three Bodies: Essays on Kingship and Ritual (Manohar 2021).</p>

<p>This book is a detailed account of the writer's stay on the Ceylon Island a colony of the British at that time while he was posted there. This volume comprises the history of Ceylon and Britain’s conquest of the Island. Interesting accounts are to be found comprising of rogue elephants shikars the different species of crows found in the Island a description of jungle fowls pigeon shooting a journey to Adam’s Peak and the accounts of ancient temples at Kelaniya the ancient city of Kurunegala and Anuradhapura a description of Manar pearl fishing festivals celebrated in Kandy and a journey to Matale etc. About the Author Jonathan Forbes was a Major in the 78th Highlanders of the British Army.</p>

<p>In this second volume the author describes the places of interest sports flora and fauna of Ceylon Island. The reader is taken on a tour of the ancient fortresses of Sigiriya the description of the famed leopards and elephants there his journey to Trincomalee the accounts of canals and artificial lakes the beautiful buildings and ancient temples and monuments there elephant catching the description of the aboriginals of Ceylon the mountains of Lakagella the funerary rites of the Sinhalese rulers the description of various plants found there like the cinnamon trees the dangerous venomous snakes the flora and fauna of Kandy the Horton plains the ancient city of Magam its ruins temples and botanical gardens the arrival of the Portuguese in Ceylon and also the history of the Island prior to the Sinhalese conquest in 543 bc. About the Author Jonathan Forbes was a Major in the 78th Highlanders of the British Army.</p>