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PREFACE.
IX
made with the celebrated “Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus”, the first portion of which appeared in the Asiatic Researches for 1828, and the second (from p. 188 of the present edition) in the volume for 1832. The remaining eight Essays and Lectures selected for this division will form the second volume, which is in the press.
On account of the variety of manuscript sources in Persian, Sanskrit, Bengali and different dialects of Hindi, from which the author gleaned the materials for his “Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus”, thorough consistency and uniformity in the transliteration of Indian names would have been beyond what could be expected by anyone ever so slightly acquainted with the various graphical, and still more phonetical, changes to which Sanskrit words are liable when passing into the vernacular idioms of modern India. No improvement in this respect was aimed at in the reprint of this work which appeared at Calcutta in the year 1846 (pp. 238 in 8vo), and in which even the most obvious misprints of the original edition have been reproduced with scrupulous fidelity. Some care has, therefore, been bestowed in the present edition upon introducing such accuracy in the spelling of Indian words, both ancient and modern, as shall anable the student to trace without difficulty their original forms. In cases of slight, but unavoidable discrepancies, occasioned, it is feared, in not a few
