Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts Asiatic Society Vol 14

SR No.: 020284
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hariprasad Shastri, Chintaharan Chakravarti
Publisher: Asiatic Society
Publication Year: 1955
Total Pages: 78
Language: English, Sanskrit
Classification: Catalogue
File Size: 5 MB

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INTRODUCTION
The work planned and executed in the same manner as vol. IX of the Series was completed in 1946. The printing of the volume was at one time intended to be undertaken after the preceding volumes had been published. But later on it was not considered proper to defer its publication indefinitely, as fresh revision and occasional modification of the descriptive matter might be necessary in future.
The volume, perhaps the smallest of the Series, describes 89 manuscripts mostly procured from Northern India and copied in the Devanagara script of the 18th and 19th centuries of the Christian era. A few MSS. are copied in Bengali (11, 51, 60) and Newari (34, 61). One MS. (51) is dated L.S. 362 ( = 1476 A.D.).
OWNERS, COPYISTS AND PURPOSE OF COPYING
Some of the MSS. contain interesting information regarding copyists and original owners of the MSS. as well as the purposes of copying. It is recorded that the first MS. of the volume is a copy of one originally belonging to the great scholar and Sannyasin Kavindrācārya, a list of works in whose library has been published. It may be noted in this connection that the Society is proud to possess a few more MSS. of this scholar not found in the above-mentioned list,3
Raghunatha Malaviya, owner and copyist of a number of MSS. noticed in this volume was the person from whom the Society purchased in 1909 a collection of 191 MSS. (Nos. 8330-8520). Some of the MSS. in the present volume (Nos. 7, 8, 9, 19, 30, 47), however, appear to be outside the collection purchased on that occasion.
1 Mr. O. C. Gangoly's statement (Ragas and Raginis, pp. 43, 49, 163) that the MSS. of the Pañcamasdrasamhita and Ragamäld were copied respectively in 1362 S.E. and 1431 S.E. does not appear to be correct.
2 Gaekwad's Oriental Series, No. 17.
3 Brhati (III. B. 125), Rgvedasāyaṇabhāṣya (789-1-1), Vasistha Lingapurāņa (Indian Museum Collection, 1734).
4 The Annual Report for 1909, however, makes no reference to the acquisition of this collection (JPASB, 1910, p. xxiv).