Vincent Arthur Smith was born in 1843 in Dublin which was then part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....

. He was an Indologist, historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 and art historian who worked in the Indian Civil Service and retired early to devote himself to his writing.

His Oxford History of India, covering from the early history of the subcontinent to the year 1911, is a standard text on the subject. He also wrote books on various rulers, such as the Buddhist ruler Ashoka the Great and Mughal

Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire ,‎ or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...

 emperor Akbar the Great

Akbar the Great

Akbar , also known as Shahanshah Akbar-e-Azam or Akbar the Great , was the third Mughal Emperor. He was of Timurid descent; the son of Emperor Humayun, and the grandson of the Mughal Emperor Zaheeruddin Muhammad Babur, the ruler who founded the Mughal dynasty in India...

, and a history of fine arts in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 and Ceylon.

Works

• General index to the reports of the Archaeological Survey of India: Volumes I to XXIII, with a glossary and general table of contents, Simla, Government Central Press, 1887. - Varanasi: Indological Book House, 1969
• William Henry Sleeman (ed.): Rambles and Recollections of an Indian official, Westminster Reprint edition of the 1893 (2 volumes), New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1995
• Preface to Purna Chandra Mukherji: A report on a tour of exploration of the antiquities of Kapilavastu Tarai of Nepal during February and March, 1899, Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, 1901; Delhi Indological Book House, 1969.
• "The Kushān, or Indo-Scythian, Period of Indian History, B.C. 165 to A.D. 320," pp. 1–64 in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (London), 1903.
• "Catalogue of the Coins in the Indian Museum Calcutta", in The Cabinet of the Asiatic Society of Bengal: Part 1, Oxford, 1906
• A history of fine art in India and Ceylon from the earliest times to the present day, Oxford, 1911
• The Oxford history of India : from the earliest times to the end of 1911, Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1920
• Asoka, the Buddhist emperor of India, 1 ed. Oxford 1901; 3rd ed., Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1920
• A history of fine art in India and Ceylon from the earliest times to the present day, 2. rev ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930
• François Bernier (ed.), Travels in the Mogul Empire, AD 1656–1668. Reprint, Delhi: Low Price Publications, 1994.
• The Jain Stûpa and other antiquities of Mathurâ, 2nd ed., Varanasi : Indological Book House, 1969.
• Early History of India