Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray (A Collection of Writings Volume- IV)

While a student at Edinburgh I found to my regret that every civilized country including Japan was adding to the world's stock of knowledge but that unhappy India was lagging behind. I dreamt a dream that, God willing, a time would come when she too would contribute her quota.

Half-a-century has since then rolled by. My dream I have now the gratification of finding fairly materialized. A new era has evidently dawned upon India. Her sons have taken kindly to the zealous pursuit of different branches of Science. May the torch thus kindled burn with greater brilliance from: generation to generation !

The conditions and handicap 'under which this volume appears have been related in the concluding envoy of the book and need not be repeated here. In fact, I find to my dismay that this very year I have to tour some fifteen thousand miles across the length and breadth of this land in response to invitations from several Universities and organisations.

In these days of awakened national consciousness, the life story of a Bengali chemist smacks rather of narrow provincialism. As there are two or three chapters which relate exclusively to Bengal, I have been reluctantly compelled to substitute Bengali for Indian. It will be found, however, that most part of the subject matter is applicable to India as a whole. Even the economic condition of Bengal applies mutatis mutandis to almost any province in India.

A large mass of materials originally meant for this present volume has been left out, as it has already grown, I fear, to a disproportionate bulk. If circumstances prove favourable, a supplementary volume may come out later on. It is necessary to point out that the spellings of Indian names and places have been retained as given in the original sources. So dissimilarity is unavoidable.

**Contents and Sample Pages**