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The Rare Manuscript of Jhāru Pandita's Commentary on the Kumārasambhavam of
Kālidāsa
M. L. Wadekar
Introductory :
The Oriental Institute of Baroda is one of the greatest Indological Institutes of India. It was conceived (in 1893) and established in 1927) by the fore-sighted Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad of Baroda. It has a valuable treasure of more than 27000 Mss., which incorporate the scholarly original works or commentaries on some works, on diverse subjects written in different scripts. Many mss. of the collection are quite rare and works they incorporate are mostly little-known. The Oriental Institute has so far published in the famous Gaekwad's Oriental Series more than 178 original works, based on such rare and valuable Mss. Still there are numerous works on different subjects, which are lying hidden in the form of Mss. in the Institute. Some of them a codices of certain works (codex unicum), the other copies of which are very difficult to be obtained elsewhere. In this paper, an attempt is made to introduce to the world of scholars, a rare and valuable Ms. of the commentary of a Jain
aru on the famous Mahäkävya, the Kumārasambhavam of Kālidāsa: The work has still remained unedited and unpublished and the Ms. also has been unnoticed, being available perhaps only in the Oriental Institute. The Rarity of the Commentary and its Ms. :
The New Catalogus Catalogorum', has recorded more than sixty four commentaries on the Kumarasambhavam of Kālidāsa, only few of them have been published. No mention of Jhāru's commentary on the Kumārasambhavam is found there. Similarly, among the thirty-eight commentaries, mentioned by Krishnamachariar?, the Jhārupandita's commentart is not noticed. The commentary Pañjikā of Vallabhadeva is edited and published by Prof. Gautam
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