Digital Rare Book:
India as known to the Ancient World - India's intercourse in ancient times with her neighbours, Egypt, Western Asia, Greece, Rome, Central Asia, China, Further India and Indonesia
By Gauranga Nath Banerjee
Published by Humphrey Milford, London - 1921

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PREFACE :
The object of this little book is to offer a survey of the remarkable civilisation which arose in ancient India thousands of years ago and which influenced not only the manners, religion and customs of the people of the Malaya Archipelago and Indo-China, but gave also a thin veneer of culture to the nomads of Central Asiatic steppes, through her commercial enterprise and religious propaganda.

Now, civilisation is the outcome of reciprocal action and reaction : nations both giving and taking. Such a result is but to be expected when States come into contact with one another, when they acquire knowledge and intimacy of one another's institutions and are thus able to recognise and appreciate the merits of foreign organisations and perceive the defects of their own. In India, such reciprocal action and reaction we notice from the earliest times.

True it is that India has been periodically overrun by invaders both European and Asiatic ; nevertheless the transmission and assimilation of culture continues without a break. A conquering nation may carry its own civilization with it to the conquered. Culture is often forced upon the latter by measures coercive. The conquerors, on the other hand, may acquire culture from the vanquished ; or, without the subjection of a people, assimilation of culture may come about through the unconscious
adoption of customs and modes of thought.

Throughout the earliest career of man in Central and Southern Asia, it is to India that we must turn as the dominant power by the sheer weight of its superior civilisation. To us, therefore who are the children of ancient India, it is of vital interest to lift the curtain and peer into the ages which bequeathed so precious a legacy to our forefathers. The moment seems opportune for grouping together the comparatively small amount of material at our disposal, with a view to presenting a general picture of India's intercourse with her neighbours at the dawn of history.

In this endeavour I have utilised the results of the researches of many savants and have added to them those of my own ; for the field of investigation is too large to be cultivated in its entirety by any single investigator. It has been my aim throughout to present only such results as may safely be regarded as certain and definite, and to abstain from those views which are fanciful or conjectural. I have moreover tried to tell the story without worrying the general reader with too many details. To Dr. H. F. Helmolt's monumental work, the "Weltgeschichte" (published in English by Wm. Heinemann in London under the title "The World's History"), I am indebted, especially for India's relations with Indo-China and Malaya Peninsula. I also gratefully acknowledge my obligation to Dr. G. Hirth's invaluable book The Ancient History of China and to Sir S. Raffles' History of Java. To the colossal labours of Sir Gaston Maspero and Dr. Rappaport I have been indebted especially as regards Ancient Egyptian trade with India. I also owe a debt to Mr. H. G. Rawlinson and Dr. Radha Kumud Mukherjee, forerunners in this particular branch of Indology.

Finally, I may say with Nicolaus Copernicus that "when I acknowledge that I shall treat of things in a very different manner from that adopted by my predecessors, I do so thanking them, for it is they who have opened up the roads which lead to the investigation of facts."

The University of Calcutta,
GAURANGANATH BANERJEE

February, 1921