Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East (Vol. I: Champa; Vol. II: Suvarnadvipa) v2.c22.104

v2.c22.104

The history of the colonial culture of India will some day revolutionise our conception of Hinduism based as yet mainly on Indian records, ignoring the grand transformation in Asiatic culture brought about by India. It is a matter of congratulation to Dr. Majumdar, an Indologist of renown, to have published this sumptuous survey of the political, social, artistic, and religious life of the ancient Hindu colony of Champa. Scrupulously historical in his method and outlook as he is, Dr. Majumdar has based his monograph on a painstaking analysis of the original Sanskrit inscriptions of Champa and on the interpretation of the pioneer workers in the field, the French Savants, to whom he had with characteristic justice dedicated the work. It is to eminent French epigraphists and archaeologists like Barth and Bergaigne, Finot and Parmentier, Cabaton and Aymonier that we are indebted for the slow recovery of this chapter of our history from oblivion. But as all their publications are in French, they were sealed books to most of our scholars. Moreover the "made-in-England" books on Indian history and art (not excluding the Oxford History and the Cambridge History, *etc.*) betray a curiously unhistorical tendency to ignore this positive aspect of Indian cultural expansion. This has resulted in a lamentable lack of interest in the history of "Greater India," in most of our academic circles, not excluding the Universities. Thus Prof. Majumdar has rendered a great service to the cause of Indology by making the researches of foreign scholars accessible to our Indian archaeologists and epigraphists, who are sure to profit by this widening of their historical outlook. The survey of a single colony—Champa—has occupied over five hundred pages! So we can imagine the magnitude of the task that is lying before us and we congratulate Dr. Majumdar on having boldly come forward to grapple with it. The inscriptions have been printed in Devanagari script for the benefit of the Indian scholars and the price is very reasonable, when the cost of production is taken into consideration. The members of the Greater India Society will get a special concession rate for which application should be sent to the Society's Office, 91, Upper Circular Road, Calcutta.