Page:Ancient India Krishnaswami.pdf/18

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
xiv
INTRODUCTION

I have been supplied with photographs of some of the surviving figure sculptures, a few of which will be published in my forthcoming History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon. They may, perhaps, be considered the finest known Hindu sculptures, and certainly take rank among the best. A fully illustrated monograph on Gangaikonḍapuram and Chola art generally would be of great interest.

The discussion in Chapter VII of 'Sri Rāmānujācharya, his Life and Times', throws much light upon an important epoch in the story of Indian religious development.

The origin and growth of the State of Mysore are treated at length in two chapters. But the identification of the ancient Mahisha Manḍala with Mysore must, as Dr. Fleet has shown, be given up. Māhishmatī appears to have been the capital of the Mahishas, and is now represented by Māndhāta on the Narbada.

The later chapters dealing with certain special problems, chiefly concerned with Tamil religious and literary history, are of less general interest.

Oxford VINCENT A. SMITH
February 8, 1911.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.