This book has evolved out of a fellowship dissertation presented at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1971 and a Ph.d. dissertation presented at Cambridge University in 1974. The research was financed by a Preresearch linguistic studentship (1969–70) and a Research Fellowship (1971–5) from Trinity College, Cambridge, and by a Hayter Studentship (1970–1) from the Department of Education and Science.

In the course of my research, I have incurred enormous debts to a great many people. Firstly, I would like to thank, for their time and trouble in finding material for me, the directors and staffs of the Cambridge University Library, the India Office Library (London), the Madras University Library, the National Archives of India (New Delhi), the Nehru Memorial Museum Library (New Delhi), the Tamil Nadu Archives (Madras) and the Theosophical Society Archive and Library (Adyar, Madras).

I also owe a great deal to the many friends and colleagues who have given their time to read and comment on this manuscript in one or other (and usually more than one) of its many avatars. In particular, I would like to thank Dr Christopher Bayly, Dr Carolyn Elliott, Professor John Gallagher, Dr Gordon Johnson, Dr John Leonard, Mr Peter Musgrave, Dr Tapan Raychaudhuri, Dr Francis Robinson, Professor Eric Stokes, Ms Lucy Carroll and Dr Brian Tomlinson for their help and kindness.

My greatest debt, however, is to the three people with whom I have worked most closely and but for whose encouragement the following pages would certainly have remained blank. Dr Christopher Baker has shared many of my South Indian and English hours and has given generously of his own allied material and ideas.