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Vice-President of AIIS, along with the authors of this monograph, met Sheth Shrenikbhai Kasturbhai Lalbhai, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Institute of Indology-he is also the Chairman of Sheth Anandji Kalyanji-and Dr. Jitendra Shah, Director of the L.D. Institute of Indology, in Ahmedabad with a proposal for jointly publishing a monograph on the temples in Kumbhāriyā, to which they agreed just as for sharing the cost of publication with the AIIS. Dr. Jitendra Shah, who is also the Honorary Director of the Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre, one other institution of standing in Ahmedabad, suggested that a fresh documentation of the Kumbhāriyā temples may also be undertaken-which will be at their end-for complementing what earlier had been done by AIIS and the final selection of the illustrative material for the monograph be done from the combined holdings of the two institutions. This plan, too, was approved.
The Temples in Kumbhāriyā
As a next step, the first author of this monograph, along with the photo-artist Samir Pathak and his companion Neel, both stationed at Ahmedabad, visited Kumbhāriyā in May 1999 for taking a fresh look at the buildings as well as for their photo-documentation for SCERC. A second trip was organized when both the authors of this monograph visited Kumbhāriyā in the month of September 1999 to survey further and study together the architecture of the buildings as also to continue photo-documentation in the company of Samir and this time Vikrant who assisted Samir. A third trip was undertaken in early November by Samir with Vikrant who once more ably assisted him in photography. Went with them, at this occasion, Sarvashri Lakshmanbhai Bhojak and Amrut Patel, the epigraphers of the L.D. Institute of Indology, to read some eight unreported inscriptions spotted during the present authors' previous trip, engraved as they all are on the architectural members.
As per the plan formulated for the publication of the monograph, the text-manuscript together with the accompanying illustrative material was readied for the press by May 2001. The result is this monograph which is intended to be as thorough and authentic as complete in essential and important details as was possible within the limits of authors' experience, knowledge, perceptions, and available resources. As a word of caution, let us warn the readers that it is not written in the style of a guide book meant for pilgrims and tourists, nor is it designed to be a fabulously beautiful coffee-table book cast in a populist style of prose and dazzling pictures, all in colour. By disposition,
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