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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
may here be made of the books and manuscripts in Telugu, Tamil, Mahrathi and English on account of their number and importance.
Dr. Burnell issued, what he modestly styled, "A classified Index to the Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Palace at Tanjore," between 1878 and 1880. Between 1880 and 1918 for very nearly forty years, the Library bas been the victim of many an outrage. Those who were in possession gave out on loan very many manuscripts which were never returned. And many more somehow or other, found themselves into Libraries other than at Tanjore. Dr. Burnell's Catalogue is very useful to us to trace out lost manuscripts which are never likely to come back to us. Our losses are probably far more, for even Dr. Barnell's admirable catalogue was by no means a complete catalogue of all that existed. For, where he mentions a single work in a bundle, we are able today to trace two or more works in the same bundle.
The Committee appointed by the Government of Madras took charge early in 1919. Since then, they have been busily pushing forward the work of revising and preparing a fresh catalogue of all the works now in the Library according to the latest scientific methods. Each work is described in detail in a cardindex form which contains all the necessary particulars.
In 1920 a Catalogue of printed books in French, Latin, Italian, and Greek was published. In 1926 three volumes of a Catalogue of Tamil Manuscripts in the Library were published. From the year 1924 a Catalogue of Mahrathi Mss. and books of this Library was being prepared; the first two Volumes have been pub. lished recently. These are now on sale and can be had from the Secretary of the Library. In 1933, the Andhra University pub. lished a Descriptive Catalogue of the Telugu Mss. in the Library.
The Administrative Committee of the Library approached the Government of Madras, year after year with the request for a special grant to enable them to prepare and publish a Descriptive Catalogue of the Sanskrit Mss. in the Library. With grant-in-aid from the Government of Madras, all the Sanskrit Manuscripts have now been described in the Nineteen Volumes of the Descriptive Catalogue recently published under the editorship of Vidyasagara Prof. P. P. 8. Sastri of the Presidency College, Madras.
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