INDIA, by a long series of remarkable events, has become a land of great interest, not only to the philosopher and statesman, but to the general reader. The inhabitants of no other country can boast of antiquity more remote, of historic incidents more important, or of warriors, statesmen, and poets more renowned. The modern scholar and antiquarian can revel in the abundance of the literary works of India written thousands of years ago, in a language which excels all others in perfection and refinement. Among these are poems containing four hundred thousand lines, while the longest poem in the English language contains less than eleven thousand. As the subject matter has been collected by extensive travel in India, and as the illustrations have been engraved from drawings taken on the spot, the volume is presented to the reading public with the confident expectation that it will be found to possess the merit of accuracy and truthfulness.