Handbook of History of Religions

Author(s): Edward Washburn
Publisher: Sanmati Tirth Prakashan Pune

Page 4

TO THE MEMORY OF
WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY
THIS VOLUME
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR
PREFATORY NOTE
BY THE EDITOR.
The growing interest both in this country and abroad in the historical study of religions is one of the noticeable features in the intellectual phases of the past decades. The more general indications of this interest may be seen in such foundations as the Hibbert and Gifford Lectureships in England, and the recent organization of an American committee to arrange in various cities for lectures on the history of religions, in the establishment of a special department for the subject at the University of Paris, in the organization of the Musée Guimet at Paris, in the publication of a journal—the Revue de l'Histoire des Religionsunder the auspices of this Museum, and in the creation of chairs at the Collège de France, at the Universities of Holland, and in this country at Cornell University and the University of Chicago, [1] with the prospect of others to follow in the near future. For the more special indications we must turn to the splendid labors of a large array of scholars toiling in the various departments of ancient culture—India,