Report on the Antiquities of Kathiawad and Kachh (Being the Result of the Second Season's Operations of the Archaeological Survey of Western India 1874-75) An Old and Rare Book

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present Report ought to have been issued before Christmas last, and this would have been done but for unavoidable delays. Had it been so, however, it must have been issued without much direct superintendence on my part, and the latter portion of it at least in a more abridged form. On my return from India last June, only about 50 pages had been printed off, and little more than 40 additional pages were in type; this gave me the opportunity of revising the remainder as it passed through the press, and of correcting and adding to it according to the most recent information I had obtained.

Though devoted chiefly to Kathiawad and Kachh, it is not to be regarded as in any sense a complete report on the antiquities of either of these provinces, Kachh has hitherto been a terra incognita to the antiquarian, and, though probably not very rich in remains, it deserves a much fuller examination than I could bestow upon it in a few weeks at the commencement of the hot season of 1875. Of Kathiwad we know more; but I have not been able to touch in this report, on Satrunjaya with its city of temples, the ancient Valabhi, Somanath, and many other places of interest, and it would require that I should devote at least another season to the province, in order to be able to represent these places in a manner at all adequate to their interest. The want also of anything like a sufficient staff of draughtsmen prevented a good deal being accomplished that might have been done with more effective assistance.

A complete set of impressions were taken of the great Asoka inscription at Girnar and of Rudra Dama's, and are now lodged in the India Office Library, where they can be examined by scholars. The Sah and early Arabio coins of Sindh have been made the basis of an able chapter in the Report, kindly contributed by Edward Thomas, Esq., F.R.S., &c., which will be read by oriental numismatologists with interest. For the rest, the Report must speak for itself. Having to prepare the letterpress and all the accompanying drawings for publication within the space of the four months I am annually in Europe, but little time is at my command for study and research, which are indispensable for the full illustration of the subject, and for the working out of the many points of history, ethnology, &c. that present themselves for investigation. I have consequently been obliged, among other things, to pass over some inscriptions quite unnoticed, but in the hops that at some future date I may be able to hare them prepared for publication.

Much and valuable aid has been afforded me in the preparation of the work:

in the field-by Mr. J. IB. Peile, Bo.C.S., and Colonel W. Chase Parr, the Political Agents in Kathiawal and Kachh respectively, who gave me every assistance while in their respective provinces, and to whom my thanks are accordingly due, and in information -by Major J. W. Watson, Dr. Georg Buhler, Professors Kern of Leiden, Eggeling of Edinburgh, and Blochmann of Calcutta, the latter of whom translated the Arable and Persian inscriptions from Ahmadabad given in the first chapter, while to the Rev. A. Milroy of Moneydie, N.D., I am indebted for the translation from the Dutch of large extracts from Dr. Kern's excellent monograph on the date of Buddha and the Asoka edicts. For other translations from the same I am indebted to my friend the late lamented Professor R. C. Childers, Assistant Librarian at the India Office, whose services were ever readily available to all who required them, and who also revised the proofs of the sixth chapter of this report. Lastly, Mr. J. F. Fleet, of the Bombay Civil Service, a distinguished Sanskrit and Canarese scholar, has supplied the translations of inscriptions given in the Appendix from my first season's Report; and to Edward Thomas, Esq., F.R.S., &c., is not only due the chapter on Sah and Gupta coins, &c., but the careful superintendence of the proofs of the earlier portion of the volume.

The photographs and drawings have been produced under the care of Mr. Walter Griggs, of the Art Department at Peckham, who has spared no pains or trouble to make them as satisfactory as the materials I was able to put into his hands would enable Lim. The illustrations alone will, I trust, be regarded as some addition to our knowledge of Indian art.