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By the Editor of this Series
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welcome assurance that the compositor and proof-reader did their work so well as to save him a great deal of trouble. And the general appearance of the text called forth from him expressions of satisfaction and delight. The larger Sanskrit type of this volume was brand-new when the work was begun, and it certainly yields a clear-cut and beautiful result. Scholars may well be grateful to good master-printers, and I wish for this printinghouse, now in the second century of its history, a long continuance of its useful and honorable activity.
The Royal Society of Sciences at Göttingen deserves the thanks of Indianists for publishing Dr. Hertel's elaborate critical edition of this text or "editio major.” The Society's edition is of course the indispensable basis for all further scientific investigation of the Panchatantra. And I make this statement explicitly and in Dr. Hertel's name, since he promised the Royal Society to do so when he received permission to issue this editio minor.
The price of the editio major is necessarily too large for the purse of the average student. It seemed, accordingly, that an inexpensive reprint or "editio minor” might prove very useful. For the permission to make this reprint, I here express on behalf of Dr. Hertel and myself our thanks to the Royal Society of Sciences at Göttingen.
Since the text of the Tantrākhyāyika is of great intrinsic importance by reason of its antiquity and its history and its contents and its suitability as a reading-book for students, it is hoped that this "editio minor” may find a hearty welcome and a wide circulation.
CHARLES R. LANMAN Harvard University
August 9, 1915
