Marc Aurel Stein, illustrated Rājataraṅgiṇī

The edition (1893) and translation (1900) of Kalhana’s Rajatarangini remain Marc Aurel Stein’s most lasting contributions to the study of Sanskrit and premodern Indian history. While this work remains unsurpassed in modern scholarship, references in Stein’s private letters pointed to the existence of an updated and expanded version of the Rajatarangini, illustrated by photographs of various locales mentioned in Kalhana’s history. These revisions and additions, which Stein called the Illustrated Rajatarangini in correspondence, were long considered lost, however this volume presents Marc Aurel Stein’s Illustrated Rajatarangini, edited from manuscripts kept in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. Appearing in print for the first time, the Illustrated Rajatarangini collects Stein’s additions and corrections to his text and translation of Kalhana’s Rajatarangini. These notes are illustrated photographs of important sites in the Kashmir Valley taken by Stein on his last tour of the Valley in 1940. This collection of photographs has been reassembled from collections in Oxford and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. The volume is completed with reprints of four important papers on the Sanskrit text Rajatarangini by Eugen Hultzsch. These papers served as catalysts for Stein to rethink important textual variants in the Rajatarangini.