This is a pioneering work, originally published in the late 19th century, offering a comprehensive exploration of architectural developments across India and parts of Southeast Asia. Fergusson, a Scottish architectural historian, sought to document and analyze the styles, construction methods, and cultural influences that shaped the region's architecture over centuries. His work remains influential as one of the earliest systematic studies on Asian architecture in English.

The book divides into two main sections: Indian architecture and Eastern (primarily Southeast Asian) architecture. In the Indian section, Fergusson examines architecture spanning from ancient Buddhist stupas and rock-cut caves to the intricately designed temples of southern India, as well as the Mughal contributions in the north. He discusses the architectural significance of renowned sites like the Ajanta and Ellora caves, the temples of Khajuraho, and iconic Mughal structures such as the Taj Mahal and Fatehpur Sikri.

In the Eastern section, Fergusson extends his analysis to the architectural practices in Burma, Java, Cambodia, and Siam (modern-day Thailand). He explores the Hindu-Buddhist influences seen in the magnificent structures of Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Borobudur in Indonesia, showing how Indian architectural principles adapted to local cultural contexts and environmental conditions.

James Fergusson was born in Scotland in 1808. He travelled to Calcutta where he began working as a partner in a merchant house. He became a highly successful indigo planter which enabled him to retire after ten years, settle in London and train as an architect. During his time in India, he become interested in its architecture. He made numerous research trips to the country between 1834 and 1843. He also presented papers at the British Institute of Architects on the architecture of southern India and Bijapur. He died in 1886.

James Burgess (1832-1916), was the founder of The Indian Antiquary in 1872 and an important archaeologist of India in the 19th century. Burgess was born on 14 August 1832 in Kirkmahoe, Dumfriesshire. He was educated at Dumfries and then the University of Glasgow and the University of Edinburgh. He did educational work in Calcutta, 1856 and Bombay, 1861, and was Secretary of the Bombay Geographical Society 1868-73. He was Head of the Archaeological Survey, Western India, 1873, and of South India, 1881. From 1886-89 he was Director General, Archaeological Survey of India. In 1881 the University of Edinburgh awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters (LLD).

Richard Phene Spiers (1838-1916) was an English architect and author. He occupied a unique position amongst the English architects of the latter half of the 19th century, his long mastership of the architectural school at the Royal Academy of Arts having given him the opportunity of moulding and shaping the minds of more than a generation of students. Spiers wrote most of the articles dealing with architecture for the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.

THE late Mr. Fergusson's 'History of Indian and Eastern Architecture' has now been before the public for more than thirty years, and was reprinted (without his consent) in America, before his death in 1886, and the publishers issued a reprint in 1891. His method of treating the subject he has thus described:" What I have attempted to do during the last forty years has been to apply to Indian Architecture the same principles of archaeological science which are universally adopted not only in England, but in every country in Europe. Since the publication of Rickman's 'Attempt to discriminate the Styles of Architecture in England' in 1817, style has been allowed to supersede all other evidences for the age of any building, not only in Mediaeval, but in Byzantine, Classical, and, in fact, all other true styles. Any accomplished antiquary, looking at any archway or any moulding, can say at once, this is Norman, or Early English, or Decorated, or Tudor; and if familiar with the style, tell the date within a few years, whether it belongs to a cathedral or a parish church, a dwelling house or a grange, .. is not of the smallest consequence, nor whether it belongs to the marvellously elaborate quasi- Byzantine style of the age of the Conqueror, or to the prosaic tameness of that of the age of Elizabeth. Owing to its perfect originality and freedom from all foreign admixture or influence, I believe these principles, so universally adopted in this country, are even more applicable to the Indian styles than to the European."