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PREFACE
About a hundred years ago the Government of Bombay decided to form the Government Manuscripts Library. Consequently in 1866 Dr. G. Bühler was entrusted with the work of making a search for Sanskrit and Prākrit Mss. and buying them on behalf of this Govt. He ably carried on this work for several years and prepared reports. Later on, Professors of Sanskrit of the Elphinstone and Deccan Colleges viz. F. Kielhorn, R. G. Bhandarkar, P. Peterson and A. V. Kathawate continued this work. The Govt. Mss. Library thus formed and maintained by the Govt. of Bombay was deposited at the Deccan College, and since 1918 it is at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.
lo 1930 I was invited by this Institute to prepare a Descriptive Catalogue of the Jaina Mss. At that time there were about 20000 Mss. in the Govt. Mss. Library. Of them about 4650 were Jaina Mss., and they were to form Vols. XVII and XVIII as stated by Dr. S. K. Belvalkar in his letter dated as 3rd October 1930 and addressed to me, as the then Superintendent of the Mss. Depart. ment.
I commenced my work in 1930. After I had described 131 Mss. dealing with Jaina works on grammar, prosody etc., I was asked by Dr. S. K. Belvalkar to give up this Section. Later on, he in. formed me that I should not describe Mss. pertaining to Jaina works on technical sciences and those embodying Jaina commentaries on non-Jaina poems and dramas. Thus the province of the Jaina Catalogue was curtailed'. I completed it in 1936. It contains a description of 3027 Jaina Mss. ( vide the Report for 1958-59).
Originally two Volumes XVII and XVIII were assigned to " Jaina Literature and Philosophy" but, in course of time this plan
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1 There was however no such restriction laid down at any time regarding the work of preparing card-index of Jaina Mss, entrusted to me in 1931 and soon completed by me.
