About a week before the Durga Puja holidays ensued I requested the author to write a paper on this chief national festival of the Hindus of Bengal, giving an account of the rites and ceremonies connected with it. He readily complied with my request, and although written at the spur of the moment and necessarily in great hurry, the paper has proved so interesting and has been so favorably received by the public that I have thought it proper to reprint it in the present form, chiefly with a view to circulate it among oriental scholars and others, who take interest in the religious institutions of the Hindus. The difficulties, which the author has met with in rendering into English the peculiar forms and expressions of Sanskrit Mantras and Slokas, may be easily imagined by those who have an experience of such work, and it is I think sufficient to mention that he has paid more attention to matter than to manner.
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