________________
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the The other short-form da probably stands for das a meaning in present
context 'the condition of writing.' However, a certain ambiguity
seems to have prevailed while these descriptive devices were being
used. In the description of no. 327 (our J3 below), Punya-vijayaji's catalogue reads "samha. Śrestha. da. Śrestha" as above, but then goes on to comment prati akhi bhangi ga-elt ane atijīrna che 'the ms. is
completely broken and very much worn out', which is contradictory, if
the interpretation suggested above is assigned to the forms samha and
da. Probably, Punya-vijayajī too sensed the difficulty and replaced both sanha and da in the following part of the catalogue with sthi
standing for sthiti and meaning 'condition.' K (p. IX) says that S.K. Ramanatha Shastri was also associated with the
21.
work of transcribing. He might have culled this detail from De's 1923 or
1928 edition, to neither of which I have access at present.
22.
I have reproduced these details from p. 176, entry 1887 of M.B. Emeneau's A Union List of Printed Indic Texts and Translations in American Libraries,
New Haven, Connecticut: American Oriental Society, 1935.
23.
(a)
This guess is based on the fact that Emeneau (see note 22 above) does
not record any variation in title. (b) According to Emeneau, the second edition has lxviii + 270 pages.