India and Central Asia (An Old and Rare Book)

Preface An invitation from the University of Mysore, through an old friend, Prof. A.V. Narasimha Murthy to deliver two lectures was a welcome feature in an otherwise routine but not dull academic activities in my post retirement period. I accepted the invitation with gratitude since it could afford me an opportunity to share my thoughts with friends and scholars. I was at that time engaged in my work on Indian culture in Central Asia, a good supplement to my earlier study of Indian cultural expansion in south-east Asia-both being in Hindi. I therefore, thought it worthwhile making a brief survey of ancient Indian relations between India and Central Asia in English, as could provide a wider perspective and have an equally bigger audience interested in this subject. It also became necessary for me to write down these lectures for print.

These lectures were scheduled to be delivered at Mysore University in the last week of January 1980, but a shocking tragedy with the loss of my younger daughter in a road accident on January 15 postponed these lectures for a month.. I could, however, formally deliver these lectures in the last week of February before an intelligent audience at the University of Mysore. The Publication part naturally involved certain difficulties which were duly overcome by the personal attention of Prof. Murthy and Sri K. T. Veerappa, Director of the Prasaranga.

**Contents and Sample Pages**