Religious Change and the secular state

I should like to express my sincere gratitude to the Trustees
University for the great honour they paid me in appointing me
of the Stephanos Nirmalendu Ghosh Lectureship of Calcutta
to the Lectureship for 1975. For besides that honour, which
I appreciate highly, they gave me the opportunity of another
visit to Calcutta, a city dear to my heart, and one which, as
y have mentioned in these lectures, I first visited 35 years ago.
When Bengali friends ask me how I like Calcutta they sometimes
seem surprised when I reply, Amar Kolkata khub bhalo lage. But
it is so ; I have a strongly developed sense of well being when
I am there, however underdeveloped may be my ability to
express it in the rich language of Bengal.
In a sense these lectures are an attempt to put into words,
in an academic context, the many aspects of South Asia's social
and religious life-Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist
especially—which are a continual source of fascination to me.
They are also in a sense the outcome of the fact that thirty five
years ago, as a young man far away from England, I fell in
with some good friends in Calcutta and at Serampore, who
set me on the road to the South Asian and Bengali studies and
teaching which it is now my privilege to pursue as my daily
occupation.