I am deeply grateful to Paul Dundas, my primary supervisor, for his support, advice, encouragement and patience; and to Peter Bisschop, my secondary supervisor, for very generously reading my thesis long after he had switched jobs and left Edinburgh, and for his many helpful corrections and suggestions.
I am indebted also to my former teachers for instilling in me a desire to pursue the subject; especially Alexander Piatigorsky, Dominik Wujastyk, Renate Söhnen-Thieme, Richard Gombrich and John Brockington.
I am obliged to the many brilliant scholars whose work has informed and improved my own, especially those who have gone before me in the study of the Pāñcarātra.
I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my family, and especially to my parents, for their absolute support and enthusiasm. Without the help of my father, who has a much greater knowledge of the Pāñcarātra than could be reasonably expected, this thesis would not exist. It is to him that this work is dedicated.
Finally, I thank Penelope for hurrying me along towards the end and, most of all, Clare for much more than I have space and time to say.[[261]]