________________
collecting at Pattan rich collections of Mss. was a great hater of Jains and Jainism and tried his best to destroy the Jain literature. Ministers Udayana and others removed the Mss. from Pattan to Jesalınere and other unknown places. The palm-leaf Mss. at Jesalmere are therefore mainly the originals from Pattan, whiclı 10w possesses only their copies. This Jesalmere Bhandar is therefore kept well protected on a bill fort amidst a sandy country not easily accessible to ordinary people. Dr. Buhler was the first scholar to inspect this Bhaudar in 1872 but succeeded in gettiug access to only 40 "Pothies." After him weut Prof. S. R. Bhandarkar but he too could nct see all the Mss. But as at Pattan so at Jesalmere too, Mr. Dalal was fortunate to be able to inspect the whole collection of Mss. consisting of nearly 3,000 of paper and 344 of palıu-leaf and to prepare a descriptive catalogue of all the palmleaf Mss. The necessity of preparing such a a catalogue was urgently pointed out both by Dr. Buhler and Prof, Bhandarkar in their reports. Thus by his thorough searches at Pattan and Jesalmere Mr. Dalal has brought, once for all, to the notice of the learned world the actual contents of these famous collections, and has made accessible to the Central Library Depart
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org