Preface To The Third And Revised Edition.
In preparing this edition for the press, we have striven to correct minor points of detail in literary form, without touching at all more important matters. Had H. P. Blavatsky lived to issue the new edition, she would doubtless have corrected and enlarged it to a very considerable extent. That this is not done is one of the many minor losses caused by the one great loss.
Awkward phrases, due to imperfect knowledge of English, have been corrected; most of the quotations have been verified, and exact references given—a work involving great labour, as the references in the previous editions were often very loose; a uniform system of transliteration for Sanskrit words has been adopted. Rejecting the form most favoured by Western Orientalists as being misleading to the general reader—we have given to the consonants not present in our English alphabet combinations that approximately express their sound-values, and we have carefully inserted quantities, wherever they occur, on the vowels. In a few instances we have incorporated notes in the text, but this has been very sparingly done, and only when they obviously formed part of it.
We have added a copious Index for the assistance of students, and have bound it separately, so that reference to it may be facilitated. For the great labour in this we, and all students, are the debtors of Mr. A. J. Faulding.
Annie Besant.
G. R. S. Mead.
London, 1893.