Indian Witchcraft and Primitive Forms of Belief

Abstract

WHEN the history of the study of ‘things Indian’ is written, the name of the late William Crooke will rank high. His erudition was vast, and his range of reading immense, while his sanity of outlook and grasp of matters of fact guided him among the many pitfalls which have beset the paths of theory in Indian ethnology. It was these qualities which made him a particularly safe guide to the student and accounted largely for the high repute of the pioneer work in his little book “An Introduction to the Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India,” first published in 1894. It was reissued in 1896, and is now published posthumously in a third edition, but entirely rewritten in the light of further information.

Religion and, Folklore of Northern India.

By William Crooke. Prepared for the Press by R. E. Enthoven. Pp. iv. + 471. (London: Oxford University Press, 1926.) 21s. net.