Foreword
Students of ancient Indian history will welcome
•r
mother book from the pen of Prof. Phanindra Nath
Bose—"The Hindu Colony of Siam". His previous
works1 have already made accessible to us important
events of Ancient Indian history, such as the Hindu
colonisation of Champa and the introduction of Bud-
dhism to China which we Indians should know. The
present book deals with a new chapter of the history of
Indian colonisation of the Far East. It is mostly
the work of the French school of orientalists
and Prof. Bose's sound knowledge of the French lan-
guage has permitted him to utilise the works of the
French scholars which we generally ignore. The
systematic attempt which Prof. Bose is making since
last few years to interpret the history of the cultural
conquest of the Far East by India is a real service to
our country and deserves praise. The history of the
Indian colonisation of Indo-China and the Malay penin-
sula forms a glorious chapter of the history of India.
This colonisation was a gradual cultural conquest by
peaceful methods and was not a colonisation in the
modern sense of the term, which implies the political
and economic exploitation of certain country by the
1 [a] Indian Teaehers o! Buddhist Universities,
[b] Indian Teachers in China*
[«] Indian crlony of Champa,