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An octogenarian, Prof. Jagannath Agrawal is an outstanding epigraphist and scholar of Sanskrit, Indian History. Culture and numismatics, whose name needs hardly any introduction to the world of Indologists. A man with brilliant academic record, he served the Panjab University from 1931 to 1974. His researches stretching over a span of more than half a century, cover wide areas of Indological subjects and are published in a large number of reputed journals, both foreign and Indian. As honorary fellow of the epigraphical Society of India, and life member of a number of academic societies, he has had the honour of presiding over the sessions of the Epigraphical Society of India. Numismatic Society of India, History and Classical Sanskrit Sections of the All India Oriental Conference, Punjab History conference etc. He was hooured with two Felicitation Volumes, one from Vishveshvaranand Institute, Hoshiarpur and athe other sponsored by his old pupils.

Dr. Shankar Goyal (b. 1959), the young and ebullient author of the present monograph, is emerging very rapidly as one of the recognized authorities on the historiography of ancient India. He has already produced three monographs dealing with some aspects of ancient Indian history writing viz. History and Historiography of the Age of Harsha (Jodhpur, 1992), Aspects of Ancient Indian History and Historiography (New Delhi, 1993) and History Writing of Early India (Jodhpur, 1996). He has co-edited a number of works with such eminent scholars as Professors G.C. Pande, B. Ch. Chhabra and Jagannath Agrawal which are directly or indirectly concerned with this discipline, including Political History in a Changing World (Jodhpur, 1992), Reappraising Gupta History (New Delhi, 1992) and S.R. Goyal: His Multidimensional Historiography (New Delhi, 1992). He has also-co-edited several other monographs with Shri M.C. Joshi and Dr. Sobhag Maghur which include King Chandra and the Meharauli Pillar (Meerut, 1989), Spectrum of Nehru’s Thought (New Delhi, 1994) and Rajasthan Bharati, in two volumes (Jodhpur, 1995) and authored more than seventy research articles. His research output in a period of less than six years has been stupendous, and its originality and quality superb, as is evident from the reviews of his works appearing in national and international journals. Dr. Shankar Goyal did his graduation from the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, post-graduation from the Deccan College, Pune, and Doctrate on Main Trends in Indian Historiography Since Independence from the University of Jodhpur, Jodhpur, where he is presently working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of History.