In this new edition I have left out my long note On the Renaissance of Sanskrit Literature, not from any sinister motives, but only because that essay has excited so much interest, and produced so large an amount of literature, that if I had wished to treat the subject once more, and as it deserved to be treated, that Note would have become a book by itself. In my Note as it stands in $Le first edition I had tried to sum up all that was known at the time. But owing to the wide interest excited in the subject, most important contributions to our knowledge of what I called the period of the Renaissance of Sanskrit Literature have since been made, and I ought to state that on several points my views have been considerably modified. I confess that I put forward one or two opinions, chiefly in order to provoke opposition and controversy. With regard, for instance, to the introduction of the Vikrama era, I challenged the production of any single inscription prior to 543 A.D. dated according to the Vikrama era. No such inscriptions were then known, and yet it was supposed that this era had been in use ever since 56 B.C. However, as Professor Kielhorn has shown (Nachriehten der Konigl. Gesellschaft zu Gottingen, 1891, No. 5), some such inscriptions have since been found, and that fact is very important. They are few, and why during nearly six centuries there should be so few inscriptions dated by the Vikrama era has still to be accounted for. Besides, Professor Kielhorn fully
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