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 PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

I HAVE had but few alterations and corrections to make in this new edition of my Lectures on India, which I had the honour to deliver before the University of Cambridge in the year 1882.

I do not mean to say that my Lectures have not been attacked and criticised, but though I always feel grateful for any suggestions emanating from honest and impartial judges, I am not able in every case to accept their decision or to follow their advice.

The one Lecture which has provoked the most decided antagonism, viz. the second, on the Truthfulness of the Hindus, I was able to leave exactly as I delivered it and as it was printed in my first edition. I have given my authorities for every statement contained in that Lecture. The facts remain unshaken, and nothing that has been said against my conclusions has in the least altered the convictions which I expressed in it.

In order to show, however, what extraordinary means are sometimes resorted to by so-called impartial critics, I must here mention what to many of my readers will seem an almost incredible story. A distinguished Oriental scholar, who does not wish his name to appear, wrote a letter which was published