Asiatic Society of Bengal. Xvii 
already told you, is another important source of our past 
history. These fall into four broad divisions, (1) Epigraphy, 
(2) Numismatics. (3) Iconography and (4) Art and Architeec- 
ture. Notable advance has doubtless been made in the study 
of these sources during the last half a century, as I attempted 
to show in my Address to the Second Oriental Conference held 
last year in this city under the auspices of the University 
of Calcutta. But it must be conceded that much still remains 
to be accomplished in this direction. Even in the sphere 
of Epigraphy. which may create the impression that the field 
has been thoroughly exploited, if we look into the Government 
Epigraphist’s list of inscriptions discovered in the Madras 
Presidency alone, we are constrained to admit that numbers 
of them still await to be deciphered and made accessible for 
the purposes of history. The same remark may be applied 
with even greater emphasis to each of the other branches of 
Indian Archeology. 
The materials which have been critically handled by 
different scholars and archeologists are now within the reach 
of the historian. He has but to digest and collate them, to 
requisition them into the service of History. It is an elemen- 
tary truism that the life of a nation is faithfully portrayed in 
the monuments of its literature; here, as elsewhere among a 
history, and their importance can scarcely be over-rated 
specially for our earliest period. The history of the pre- 
Asokan times in all its aspects still rests practically on literary 
evidence. It is true that the bulk of this literary source is 
preponderantly religious. But we have such secular works 
as the Puranas and the Epics which have helped to preserve 
the historic tradition. The results obtained by a scrutiny of 
vears ago, when he was engaged on the translation of the 
Markandeya Purana, undertaken by him for this Society. It 
is also extremely gratifying to note that a work of exactly the 
same nature was submitted in 1921 by Mr. Sitanath Pradhan, 
Lecturer on Physics in the Murarichand College, Sylhet, for 
the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, although he himself was 
presumably a votary not of philosophy, but of science. The 
thesis has been pronounced by experts to be of much ex- 
cellence and has been accepted by the University for immediate 
2 
