If you're thinking of getting into one of the few mutual funds that invest only in India, or in buying individual Indian stocks, you may want to think twice.

"People get all excited about this or that new market," says senior analyst Bill Rocco at fund tracker Morningstar. "By the time most people even think about doing that, the market has been hot for a while."

That's certainly the case in India, where the dominant index on the Bombay Stock Exchange is up about 50 percent since last year, helped by a construction boom and an inflow of foreign money.

There is some talk of a stock-market bubble after such a sharp rise, but India's long-term economic prospects look good. The rise of the middle class is boosting domestic consumption in the billion-strong population, and a sizable number of English speakers gives it a leg up on China when it comes to outsourcing technology and call-center work from the United States and Europe.

However, it's far from certain that a rising economy means a rising stock market. A study by the London Business School and ABN Amro published this year looked at 53 countries, half of them developing, and showed that the slowest-growing economies had the highest investment returns.

Benjamin Tobias, a financial planner in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who specializes in international investing, says it's too soon to get into India — despite the recent stock run-up, there are too many questions about political stability for long-term investors.

As with China, "their economy is going to grow by leaps and bounds, but in both cases you might be looking at situations where the general stock market may not reflect it for some time," Tobias says.

Rocco, on the other hand, says there can be space for a fund that focuses on a single emerging country in the portfolio of a sophisticated investor who already has a well-balanced mix of international funds.

"You can think of it as an aggressive stock," he says.

Those who want to invest in China have quite a few mutual funds to choose from. The options for those who want to invest in India are, by contrast, very limited.

"There's a lot of expertise in China, whereas a lot of the Asia funds are only starting to build expertise in India," Rocco says.

There are only two U.S. funds that are focused specifically on India, both from Eaton Vance. Its Greater India fund has been the fastest-rising international fund for the past three years, according to Rocco, rising 48 percent per year.

But he believes it's better to get into the India market indirectly, by getting a diversified emerging markets fund. In particular, he points to Matthews Pacific Tiger Fund, which had 7 percent of its assets in India last year, and Oppenheimer Developing Markets, which had 16 percent.