Questions of King Milinda Part 02

SR No.: 007682
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1894
Total Pages: 2240
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 38 MB

Page 468

INTRODUCTION.
xxxvii
enable me to copy and collate two-thirds of Dk. III and to collate Dk. IV-IX; and Dastûr Jâmâspji, afterwards, kindly supplied me with a copy of the remainder of Dk. III.
The manuscript has been bound in its defective state, and contains 322 folios, originally fourteen inches high and ten inches wide, written 20 to 22 lines to the page. When complete it appears to have consisted of 392 folios, all numbered in Persian words, but with several blunders, including one of fifty folios, so that the last folio was really numbered 442. Of the 70 folios not bound with the rest of the manuscript, fourteen were lying loose in the volume; forty-three belonged to Dastûr Rustamji Kaikobâdji of Nausâri, with a copy of which I was kindly supplied by Dastur Dr. Peshotanji Behramji of Bombay, who also enabled me to collate it with the original folios; and seven folios were lent to me by Dastûr Dr. Hoshangji Jâmâspji of Poona, for the purpose of copying. The remaining six folios have not been discovered; they comprise the first folio of the manuscript, containing the commencement of Dk. III, which was probably lost before the manuscript arrived in India; also one folio in Dk. VII, two in Dk. IX (see pp. 262, 270 of this volume), and the last two folios of the manuscript, containing the third colophon and final approvals (see p. xxxvi).
I am likewise much indebted to the kindness of Professor Kielhorn, who gave me a modern copy of Dk. IV-IX (with the text in its defective state) which had been prepared at Poona, so that it was only necessary to collate this copy with the original text of the manuscript B. With the aid of all this liberal assistance I was enabled to obtain the whole text of the Dinkard, known to exist, in the course of a few months; that it has since taken as much as sixteen years to find opportunities for translating and publishing rather more than one-fourth of its contents, will not surprise any one who is acquainted with the nature of the work that had to be done.
The only known manuscript, independent of B, that contains any portion of the Dînkard, is the old codex K
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