This edition presents a view of the early history of India as it appears to me after nearly forty years study. It is as accurate and up-to-date as I can make it, but does not pretend to be final, because finality in a work dealing with a subject so progressive is unattainable. The mass of new matter and fresh discussion accumulated since the publication of the edition, a little more than five years ago, is so great that difficulty has been experienced in maintaining the decision to confine the book within the limits of a single volume of reasonable size and moderate price. It would be much easier to expand it to double the length. Notwithstanding constant effort to avoid prolixity and wearisome details, material enlargement, compensated in some measure by certain omissions, has proved inevitable. Readers are invited to remember that the book was designed to be, and still is, primarily a political history. It is not intended to be an encyclopaedia of Indian antiquities, as some critics seem to think that it ought to be.