In the early chapters of this Volume the authors have taken as their focal point the political history of India, the rise, decline and fall of the Gupta Empire and have brought the history of the subsequent period into perspective. Special emphasis has been laid on the work of the Chalukyas and the Pallavas in the South who took up the thread left by the Guptas in the North and achieved political unit in the Deccan and South India, thereby, envisaging the political ideal of a federation of the three regional units. The cultural movements which accompanied these events have also been traced. During this period there were established those rock like foundations which were to culminate in the highest peak of Hinduism; of these we may cite the Ramayana and Mahabharata among the epics, the vast Puranic lore, and Vishnavism and Saivism in the field of religion. Then, Sanskrit as the lingua franca of educated India cut across all disunity; but more than this, we find the cultural hands of India, stretching across her natural boundaries even as far as Central and Eastern Asia, thus establishing ?Greater India?. The contributors to this Volume are: Dr. R.C.Majumdar, Prof. R. Sathianathaier, Prof. K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, Dr. M. A. Mehendale, Dr. G.V. Devasthali, Dr.K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, Prof. H.D. Velankar, Dr. Nalinaksha Dutt, Dr. U.N. Ghoshal, Dr. A. D. Pusalkar, Dr. J.N. Banerjea, Dr. T.M.P. Mahadevan, Dr. A.M.Ghatage, Prof.U.C.Bhattacharjee,Prof. H.D. Bhattacharyya, Dr. Nihar Ranjan Ray, Prof. S.K. Saraswati, Dr. D.C.Sircar. 39 plates adequately illustrate the best specimens of the unique artistic achievements of this period