PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The success of this book has been much beyond my expectations. That a considerable edition has been exhausted within a few months after publication proves that it meets a want.
I have now practically re-written the book, and have taken the opportunity of introducing a considerable amount of fresh information collected in the course of the Ethnographical Survey of the North-Western Provinces, the results of which will be separately published.
For the illustrations, which now appear for the first time, I am indebted to the photographic skill of Mr. J. O’Neal, of the Thomason Engineering College, Rurki. I could have wished that they could have been drawn from a wider area. But Hardwar and its shrines are very fairly representative of popular Hinduism in Northern India.
W. Crooke.
Saharanpur,
February, 1895.