Alphabetical List of Manuscript in Oriental Institute Part 02

Author(s): Raghvan Nambiyar, Rajendra I Nanavati
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra

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PREFACE
The second volume of An Alphabetical List of Manuscripts in the Oriental Institute, Baroda is now presented to all lovers of Sanskrit scholarship. The first volume published in the year 1942 listed 7,348 manuscripts comprising less than half of the whole MSS collection of the Oriental Institute. In the present volume are treated not less than 9,077 Mss comprising the remaining half of the total collection, Thus the work of preparing an alphabetical list of Mss in the Oriental Institute comes to an end. It is, however, necessary to publish an additional volume to include an Index of Authors and an Index of Works, but as the work of indexing is both heavy and onerous, this index is reserved for a third volume, which will be published if circumstances so permit. An Index of this kind will facilitate easy reference to original inanuscripts and authors included in the two volumes of the Alphabetical List easily and speedily. Such an Index will certainly prove useful since the number of manuscripts alone exceeds Sixteen Thousand and Four Hundred.
The present volume contains a list of MSS on such interesting subjects as Sangita (music ), Jyotişa ( astronomy and astrology ), Ayurveda (medicine), and Tantras (psychic science) of the Hindus as well as of the Buddhists. These are some of the practical channels through which Sanskrit flowed, and recorded an amazing amount of original information, traditions and treatises.
In the Sangita Section alone there are 57 manuscripts, and much of this material remains still unpublished. In this group are included several works on Indian Dancing which is based on scientific methods. In India, Dancing reached the level of a Sãstra and like all other Sástras required years of study and practice in order to inaster it. It is a good sign of the present age that interest in the Indian science of dancing is being revived, and it can confidently be asserted that some of the original MSS on dancing available in the Library of the Oriental Institute will considerably enhance our present knowledge on dancing, in order to make the art of dancing more scientific, more artistic and more graceful than hitherto. The publication of manuscripts on Indian Dancing is an urgent need, for without it, it will not be possible to make any decent researches on the subject.
Under Jyotisa there are altogether 1,261 MSS in the Library, and much of this valuable material still remains unpublished. Under the head Jyotisa two important sciences are included. One is known as Gaạita Jyotişa or Astronomy, and the other is Phala Jyotişa or Astrology. A surprisingly large number of minuscripts has been written on both these subjects. Ancient India took a lively interest in thein. Astrology even to-day is a living subject, and astrologers depending on ancient Sanskrit texts, are to be met with everywhere in India from Kashmir to Malabar, and from Gujarat to Bengal, Assam and even Burma. In spite