Professor G. S. Ghurye (1893-1983) is justifiably considered the doyen of Indian Sociology. On his return from Cambridge, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation under W.H.R. Rivers and later A.C. Haddon, Ghurye succeeded Sir Patric Geddes as Head of Department of Sociology in the University of Bombay in 1924. He continued to head the Department until his retirement in 1959. After retirement, he was designated the first Emeritus Professor in the University of Bombay. Ghurye's contribution to the development of sociology and anthropology in India is enormous and multi-faceted.

A prolofic writer, Ghurye wrote 32 books and scores of papers, which cover such wide-ranging themes as kinship and marriage, urbanization, ascetic traditions, tribal life, demography, architecture and literature. Ghurye played a key role in the professionalisation of sociology by founding the Indian Sociological Society and its journal Sociological Bulletin. In addition, he encouraged and trained a large number of talented students who, in turn, advanced the frontiers of sociological and anthropological research in the country. With his own voluminous output, and through the researches of his able students Ghurye embarked on an ambitious project of mapping out the ethnographic landscape of india. The birth centenary of Professor Ghurye was celebrated in an befitting manner by the Department of Sociology in the University of Bombay in 1993-94. A national seminar in commemoration of the centenary year was organised by the Department on November 22-23, 1994.

The present volume includes the papers presented at the seminar as well as aditional papers contributed by eminent scholars. The contributors include M. N. Srinivas, S. C. Dube, K. S. Singh, D. Narain, S. L. Sharma, K. L. Sharma, B. N. Saraswati, C. N. Venugopal, P. K. Bose, Pravin J. Patel, P. N. Pimpley, Makhan Jha, R. K. Bhadra, S. D. Pillai, Sadanand Bhatkal and Devangana Desai.

A. R. Momin is Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Head of Department of Sociology in the University of Bombay. He received his initial training in Sociology and Anthropology in St. Xavier's College and later in the Department of Sociology, University of Bombay. His papers have been published in national and international journals. He has co-authored a monograph on the Koknis and Malhar Kolis of Maharashtra. He has co-edited (with J. V. Ferreira) Nemesis: Critical Perspectives on Modernization (1983) and The Census as a Social Document. Professor Momin has served on the committees of University Grants Commission, Indian Council of Social Science Research and Anthropological Survey of India.