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ADDENDUM 1 Prepared incorporating the Corrections demanded by the Foreign Examiner and also incorporating reactions to his other Suggestions for my thesis Entitled "Scythian Elements in Early Indian Art" submitted for the Ph.D. degree of the University of Calcutta. The learned examiner of the above-mentioned thesis deserves the heartfelt and regardful gratitude of the candidate for kindly considering in Paragraphs 1 and 2 of his report the same thesis as "a substantial amount of work over a long period. The material assembled has been very methodically analysed, sorted and described, and the descriptive chapters of the thesis bring together a very useful and dense compendium of information about Scythian art and culture from which many conclusions could be drawn." "The volume of illustrations has been carefully compiled and presented, and backs up very well the points made in the text, and the critical apparatus (bibliography, documentation etc.) shows careful attention to the sources." I feel proud to mention here that it has been possible to earn such high commendation, resulting from a thorough study and critical

analysis of the thesis by the learned examiner only because the thesis was carried out in one of the best, if not the best, Departments in the subject of the whole world, the Department of Ancient Indian History and Culture, University of Calcutta, and under the supervision of one of the most fastidious scholars and front-ranking Indologists of the present times, Prof. Dr. Samaresh Bandyopadhyay. In fact, the present candidate has been working on the thesis since 1993 but for reasons not desirable to be mentioned here, when all hopes were almost given up, it must be mentioned here, that the Honourable Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta placing me under an eternal debt of gratitude allowed me to change my earlier supervisor and to work under the supervision of Prof. Bandyopadhyay, who immensely helped in giving the thesis its final shape within a very short time in July-August, 2005, and submit it for the Ph.D. degree of the University of Calcutta. The learned examiner's observation "from which many conclusions could be drawn" at the end of Paragraphl, quoted above, is indeed very encouraging and very aptly sums up the main objective of the thesis in which every attempt has been made to present things utilizing the available sources and avoiding hasty conclusions so that the thesis is not criticized for exhibiting any theorising tendency. 2

As regards the learned examiner's remark in Paragraph 3 "that a possible criticism is that there is too great a contrast between the density and profusion of information in the main chapters, and a broad conclusion stated in the Epilogue'," it may be mentioned that the 'Epilogue' has in fact been a brief summarisation of the possible conclusions attempted to be derived in different chapters, on the basis of available sources justly considered by the examiner as the "density and profusion of information". Efforts have always been there in this regard to be on guard against a possible criticism of repetition. The learned examiner's opinion in Paragraph 3 "Much more could be done to bring out in the earlier chapters the lines of argument based on the evidence leading to the conclusions about the integrity and continuity of Scythian art forms, or about the dichotomy between written and archaeological ancient sources. However, there is an abundance of evidence to support the case for continuity." fully justifies the main objective of the preparation of the thesis entitled "Scythian Elements in Early Indian Art" which had hardly attracted the attention of scholars. Continuity of Scythian elements in Indian art of early times and at least in some cases upto modern times has indeed been discussed in Chapters V and VI of the thesis. 3

The earlier chapters were drafted with a view to support our main aim, and, therefore, only the main arguments have been methodically analysed without going into descriptive details. As has been pointed out on page 6 of the thesis, "the utility of such a study (the present thesis), as intended, can hardly be over-estimated, since the importance of the Scythian/Saka power in the annals of the ancient Orient is at least apparent from the numerous widely known sources (both literary and archaeological) alluding to them. In the present thesis, all relevant sources, both archaeological and literary, have been taken into account.* We, however, fully agree with the learned examiner that much more could be done and the question of the dichotomy between written and archaeological ancient sources, may be taken up in future, though a critical analysis of the said sources sometimes leads one to be doubtful about the so-called 'dichotomy'. In support of his statement in Paragraph 4 that the candidate "has assembled information from modern scholarly writings without always digesting the ideas in it and developing fully independent thought", the learned examiner has given a list of a few such cases, and they are being taken care of below. 4

The present thesis does not aim at the analysis of the nature of Scythian art and it only attempts to make a hitherto neglected study of the Scythian Elements in Early Indian Art. The study of Scythian art has remarkably been done by a number of distinguished Scythologists and relevant materials have been utilized in our thesis from their writings and, therefore, the question of developing independent thought so far as the study of the Scythian art is concerned was not considered to be within our jurisdiction. Full references to the works utilized have been given in the Footnotes. So far as the tracing of Scythian elements in early Indian art is concerned, whenever possible and justified our own observations have been recorded. However, the learned examiner's hint at a critical study of the Scythian art itself is a most welcome suggestion and if we are fortunate to be awarded the Ph.D. degree, we shall be extremely happy to take it up as a post-doctoral research. My esteemed supervisor Prof. Bandyopadhyay while drawing attention to many shortcomings in the writings of the Scythologists on Scythian art has also often made similar suggestions, but desired to confine my study in the present thesis to only tracing and analysis of the Scythian elements in Early Indian art, and in this matter the learned Foreign Examiner's commendation in Paragraphs 1 and 2 of his report will serve as a source of inspiration in our future studies. 10 5

The learned Foreign Examiner has made an observation in the same Paragraph 4-"What is of most concern is the tendency to repeat statements from the books, often statements embodying their authors' judgements, comparisons and assessments as well as purely factual descriptions, in the very words of the originals" and in support of his observation he has cited a few cases (Page 89 Para.1, lines 8- 9:89.para.1.11.2-3:61.1.lines.2-1 from bottom of para:61.bottom para.,linel from bottom of para-page 62.1.1:62.1 from bottom,lines 3-2 from bottom:63.1.lines 1,2 from bottom:63.2.1-2:63.para 1 from bottomline 3 from bottom-64.1.3:65.1.3-6:130.2.1-4:152.2.5 from bottom-line 3 from bottom:153.1.line 4 from bottom-154.1.2:) from the thesis. It is indeed gratifying that he has himself considered such approach as "inadvertent plagiarism" in the last Paragraph of his report. What has happened actually is that in a hurry inverted commas have been left out while typing and also at the time of putting them by hand. This will be apparent from the fact that in such cases references to the works from which the passages have been quoted have been given in the footnotes. Moreover, in the Preface to the thesis (pp. iii-iv), it is also acknowledged that many of the interpretations given are based on the writings of the earlier authors and as per the suggestion of the learned examiner, changes by summing up or otherwise have been made by us also in some cases (Page 62,Para.1,lines 3-2 from bottom: Page 63,Para.2,lines 1-2:Page 65,Para 1,lines 3-6:), besides putting 10 6

necessary inverted commas (Page 89, Para.1, lines 8-9: Page 89, Para.1, lines 2-8: Page 61, Para.1, lines 2-1 from bottom of Para: Page 61, bottom Para.,line 1 from bottom of Para.-Page 62,Para.1, line 1:Page 63,Para 1,lines 1,2 from bottom:Page 63,line 3 from bottom- Page 64,Para 1,line 3:Page 130,Para.2,lines 1-4: Page 152,Para.2,lines 5-3 from bottom: Page 153 Para. 1,line 4 from bottom-Page 154,Para. 1,line 2: ). *** Swati Ray. (SWATI RAY) 7