Synopsis As a humble tribute to their esteemed teacher and a great human being, Prof. Kiran Kumar Thaplyal, this book, History and Heritage, is brought out by his proud students as a guru-dakashina. All his students of successive generations have always held him high I great admiration, respect and love for his erudition, for his self-effacing nature and for his ever-charged enthusiasm that he has shown ungrudgingly whenever someone sought his help, guidance, interaction, or exchange of ideas. Truly, Prof. Thaplyal is born for Indology and Indology, in turn, benefited itself indeed from his contributions. It became obvious by the prompt and overwhelming response that we received from a wide spectrum of scholars whom we approached for their learned research contribution. A the same time, we confess that the publication of this volume has got inordinately delayed for various reasons, of which, some were beyond our control and some were due to our own frailties and foibles. It may be appreciated that articles when written on diverse themes of diverse of diverse periods or on general subjects covering a larger time period by different scholars, as in this felicitation work, are difficult to be arranged chronologically or thematically. However, an effort has been made to the best of our abilities, knowing fully well that much could have been done to make it better.