Synopsis The present 'Handbook on the hard corals of India' is the maiden work on taxonomic and photographic guide for the identification of corals that inhabit Indian waters. The aim of this guide is to document the biodiversity of Indian corals identified both during the Aus-Aid, India-Australia Training and Capacity Building Project, Coral Taxonomy Training (Museum of Tropical Queensland, Townsville: October 2001-January 2002) (Appendix 2) as well as form other such earlier occasions. This guide is designed for students, snorkelers, divers, and in those interested in coral taxonomy. ...Taxonomic sources used to identify and describe the species in this handbook are provided in the suggested reading list page 265. These references include several publications by Dr. Pillai and Dr. Scheer (Pillai, 1983; Pillai, 1986; Scheer and Pillai, 1983) for a range of taxa and locations; the AIMS monograph series, Scleractinia of Eastern Australia (Vol. 1-6), a monography of the mushroom corals of the Family Fungiidae (Hoksema, 1989) a revision of the staghorn coral genus Acropora Wallace, 1999) and "Corals of the World" (Vol. 1-3) (Veron, 2000).