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Editor's Words
Late Prof. G. C. Pande needs no introduction. He was indeed a becon of light. He shone the world of Indology, Religion, Culture and Philosophy by his erudition and fame. His valuable contribution to various fields of Indian History & Culture, are well known to scholars and students of Indian History & Culture. He was always a great source of inspiration to every student of Indian history, Philosophy, Religion and Literature. He was also the founder editor of the journal 'Jijñāsā. Now Commemoration volume of Jijñāsā' gave me opportunity to pay tribute to such a illustrious scholar Late Prof. G. C. Pande.
Actually it was the long cherished wish of the editors of Jijñāsā' to present a felicitation volume of Prof. G. C. Pande. Initially the idea of felicitation was mooted by Dr. Rajni Kant Pant (the then HOD, Dept. of History & Indian Culture and editor of 'Jijñāsā') in the year of 2004. Then Dr. Neelima Vashishtha (Dept. of Fine Arts) with Prof. V. S. Bhatanagar (Dept. of History and Indian Culture) planned to felicitate Prof. Pande, but because of some limitations, it was delayed. Now the present volume can only be offered to his memory in the form of commemoration volume, which is the composite form of continuous previous efforts.
The task of bringing out volume to pay homage to our learned scholar is enormous and on the other an onerous task of contacting scholars across the country to bring together their scholarly papers. But by the grace of god, I can say that I am successful on the both the counts and definitely it is matter of pride for me and Dept. of History & Indian culture, University of Rajasthan.
It is bounded duty on my part to express my deep sense of indebtedness to numbers of scholars from whom I received wholehearted support in form of articles. I owe my sincere thanks and gratitude to all the members of editorial board of this special volume for their warm support and co-operation for bringing out this volume.
Iexpress my sincere sense of gratitude to Dr. Neelima Vashishtha to help me continuously in all type of work of the publication, specially in editing and corrections of all the manuscripts. She has been encouraging me for this noble cause. I am also thankful to Dr. Rajesh Mishra of Allahabad Museum, for sending photographs of Prof. Pande and 'Atma Kathya' of Prof. G. C. Pande. I express my thank to Prof. Susmita Pande (daughter of Late Prof. G. C. Pande) for sending family photographs. I am highly grateful to Prof. S. N. Dube, Prof. R. S. Misra, Prof. V. S. Bhatanagar for their kind help.
I would be failing in my duty if I do not express my deep gratitude to Vice-Chancellor, University of Rajasthan for kindly giving financial support.
The present volume is brought out in two volumes with five sections. The first section contains papers in memory of Prof. G. C. Pande, section second on Religion, Philosophy and Historiography, section third deals with Archaeology, Epigraphy, Numismatics, section fourth deals with Art, Architecture, Iconography and Paintings and section fifth contains History and miscellenious articles, related to different themes.
Finally I express my warm thanks to Mr. Sapan the publisher and I am very much aware of my lapses. I crave the indulgence of contributors and readers both for the errors and omission.
Prof. Vibha Upadhyaya
