Indian Antiquary Vol 13

Author(s): John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 3

PREFACE.
THIRTEEN years ago, when I started the Indian Antiquary, it was with no very sanguine
hopes that I should be able to conduct it beyond a few years, and in those first years the subscriptions did not meet the expenses. Thanks, however, to the kind assistance of the Secretary of State for India-in meeting, to a large extent, the cost of producing the facsimileg of Inscriptions for some years, -it was found possible to continne it; and of late years, the Ramber of subscribers has increased, so as to admit of the issue of nine extra parts at various dates.
In closing this thirteenth Annual volume, and with it the First Series of the Indian Antiquary, it is my pleasant daty to thank the many subscribers who have enabled me to carry it on.
Whatever may be its merits or value, they are due to the many contributors-Native and European, in India and in Europe, who have so heartily and for so many years supplied its contenta,- to whom I have never appealed in vain for papers, and to all of whom, in parting, I tender most grateful thanks. My own share in the work has been secondary : the few spare hours available for it were insufficient, even with better equipment than I could bring to the task, to permit of properly editing papers on so wide a range of subjects.
If the Indian Antiquary has been the means of creating & wider interest in antiquarian research, of eliciting and publishing results that otherwise might not have seen the light, or of supplying materials to scholars, especially in connection with Inscriptions, it has largely served its purpose; and the frequent references to it, in English and foreign publications, may perhaps be accepted as some indication that it has been doing this.
My personal connexion with it now ceases, and it is a pleasure to be able to place it in the hands of the two new editors, who are so competent to carry it on ápon the old lines, and to open up new subjects for investigation in its pages.
JAS. BURGESS.
Edinburgh, 31 Dec. 1884.