In this volume of his exploration Sir Aurel Stein presents the accounts of the vast deserts of Central Asia from 1900 to 1916 during which he was guided principally by the accounts of two earlier travelers Marco Polo and Hsuantsang. He covered more than 25,000 miles on foot and sometimes by ponyback with a force consisting of few Muslims of the Indian survey department with a handful of caravan men and a motley band of local recruits for digging. He unearthed a host of oasis settlements and salvaged an immense amount of material which a loaded onto camels and eventually shipped to Delhi and London for study and display.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Aurel Stein
Stein (Sir Mark Aurel Stein) was born on November 26, in 1862 in Budapest, (Hungary). After his graduation, Mark Aurel Stein felt interested in the archaeological studies of Iran and India when his teacher G. Buhlar, himself a great orientalist, kindled in him an irresistible passion for the rich classical passion for the rich classical learning of India. After getting his doctoral degree in 1884, he went to the Oxford University were he continued his studies in the field. In 1885 he was appointed as the Registrar of the Punjab University and the Principal of the Oriental College Lahor. In 1888 he visited Kashmir to get an entire and the oldest manuscript of the Rajatarangani. During his Central Asian tours he made an indepth study of the archaeology of Khotan and published his studies under the title Ancient Khotan. Stein's interest in language and the folklore of Kashmir arose during his first tour to Kashmir during the years 1888-98 when he was preparing a critical edition of Kalhan's Rajatarangani, with its commented translation. After several accomplishments, the great expeditions in the Central Asia and China, Sir Aurel Stein died on 26th of October 1943 at Kabul at the age of eighty-one. Stein's Hatim's Tales, edited by George Abraham Grierson, is a monumental work in the field of folklore. Besides being a record of the original text of some of the most fascinating folk tales of Kashmir, it is an indispensable work for the students of history, anthropology and poetics.
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