Introduction by the Editor

In this volume I have endeavoured to present a picture of India as it appeared to foreign travellers who visited it at different periods in its history. Greek, Latin, Chinese, Arabic, Persian, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, French, and English sources have been drawn upon, since these are the historic nations which have come into direct or indirect contact with India.

Among classical writers Strabo was given a preference, both for particular merits of his own and because his description of India includes the reports of his countrymen, Megasthenes, Onesikritos, and others, who accompanied Alexander the Great on his invading march into the land of the Indus. In the second chapter, in which the story of the practice of widow-burning, from the earliest ages to the time of its abolition, is told, space has been found for several Latin allusions, besides the Greek, Moslem, and European references to this ancient custom. The third chapter will be found to prove that the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, Hivan Tsang, was not only a pious devotee of India’s broader creed, but also a keen observer and careful recorder of what he saw in the land of the faith that he loved. For the earlier Moslem period I have chosen a selection

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from the famous al-Biruni and have added an excerpt from the Persian geographer Mustaufi, better known to us as al-Kazvini. The accounts by the Europeans give a good picture of the manner in which India presented itself to Occidental eyes from the end of the fifteenth century onward.

The selections taken from Strabo are from the standard translation by Hamilton and Falconer, but I have carefully revised the version with the help of my pupil Mr. Charles J. Ogden. The chapter from Hivan Tsang is based upon the translation by Beal (“Buddhist Records”), but has been thoroughly remodelled and likewise compared with the version by Waters, this task being done for me by one of my students, Mr. Kentok Hori, a Buddhist priest of Japan. The selections from Roger’s early Dutch account of India have been translated for the first time into English by my friend and former pupil Dr. Louis H. Gray. Grateful acknowledgment is here made for the privilege of quoting at length several passages from the Hakluyt Society’s publications, Sachau’s al-Biruni, and Beauchamp’s translation of an account of suttee by the Abbe Dubois, the latter passage being among the citations in the second chapter. In all cases the sources to which I have been indebted are indicated in their proper places, and the text in general has been treated as in the preceding volumes.

The illustrations are taken largely from original photographs or old prints, but useful aid, as in the preceding volumes, has been received from such well-known

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works on India as those of Rousselet, Beveridge, and Caine. It has been an advantage likewise to have the use of certain excellent photographs taken by the Rev. W. M. Zumbro, of Madura, Southern India.

As I close this volume, the last of the series, it is with thanks again to Mr. Haas and Dr. Gray, who have given me such material assistance; my special thanks likewise are due to several members connected with the publishing staff, to whose ready help I am much indebted. This prefatory note is written on the eve of my departure for the third time to the Orient, and as I look back over the long ages of India’s history and its position in Asia, I can but be struck by the thought of the ever-increasing interest in the East felt by the West, and the growing importance of a knowledge of the great historic nations of the Land of the Dawn.

A. V. Williams Jackson

This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
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