Preface Although many studies have appeared on different aspects of the Krishna cult, there is no up-to-date and suitably comprehensive account in English of Braj, the most important centre of Krishna pilgrimage. From the seventeenth century onwards various European travellers passed through the area and made a brief record of their impressions. A more detailed account of life in Mathura and the surrounding district was given by Mark Thornhill, who described his experiences as Collector at the time of the 'Indian Mutiny' of 1857. Though he was more familiar with the area than previous European visitors, many of his comments now appear prejudiced and typically 'colonial'. The settlement reports of Deeds and Tyler (1831) and Whiteway (1879) are restricted to statistical, topographical, and economic information. A major contribution to the study of Braj was made by Frederick Salmon Growse (1837-93), who was District Magistrate at Mathura from 1871-77. He had an antiquarian interest in local history and culture, was a keen amateur architect, and was responsible for unearthing, salvaging, and preserving many fine examples of ancient sculpture. Besides founding Mathura Museum, he restored the sixteenth-century temples and other monuments of Mathura and Vrindaban. His Mathura, A District Memoir is a rather unorthodox kind of gazetteer in that the statistical information is overshadowed by his coverage of historical and cultural topics. The later gazetteers of H. E. Drake-Brockman and E. B. Joshi follow a more standard format and scarcely provide us with any additional information on local history and culture. Up to the present day Growse's District Memoir has remained a standard work of reference, though some of his views are outdated and much more information about the topics he discusses has since become available. Early this century two missionaries who spent some time in Braj published accounts of its religious life. J. E. Scott's Braj, The Vaishnava Holy Land, while it contains some information about the Krishna cult, is primarily concerned with advertizing missionary activity. The tone of E. Mabel F. Major's On the Wings of a Wish, written to inspire children in the West to come to India and save the heathens, can hardly fail to provoke derision on the part of modern readers. Until fairly recently there were few westerners who attempted to appreciate Krishna from the standpoint of a Hindu devotee. Growse, for example, allowed his Catholicism to XV