Like the originality of Bhagwanlal Indraji’s research, Dharamsey’s book is a pathfinding contribution to the re-assessment of a pioneer archaeologist. It is an epic story, a step-by-step unravelling of a tangle of ignorance, neglect, prejudice, misrepresentation, concealment -- but mostly a dispelling of limited horizons, illustrating in carefully documented detail the often unrecognized role played by indigenous scholars in pioneering studies of Asia’s past in the 19th century.