Alphabetical List of Manuscript in Oriental Institute Part 03

Author(s): Purushottam H Joshi, Bhagvatprasad P Pandya
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra

Page 10

INTRODUCTION
. We are glad to hand over this III Volume of our catalogue entitled "An Alphabetical List of Manuscripts of the Oriental Institute, Baroda" to the scholars working in the field of Indological research. The first Volume of our catalogue was published in 1942 in our world renowned Gaekwad's Oriental Series as No. 97 which covered 7348 entries. It was compiled by Shri M. R. Nambiar. The second Volume of the said catalogue was published in year 1950 in the same series as No. 114 which was also compiled by Shri M. R. Nambiar and covered 9077 entries. Both these Volumes have covered 14000 Mss. of the Institute. Subsequently the number of Mss. reached nearly 28,000 i.e. double the number included in two Volumes already published.
The Oriental Institute as stated above has nearly 28000 Mss. in its possession at present. Every year more and more Mss. are added to the collection in the form of gift from donors or by purchase of rare and important Mss. It will not be out of place here to recall the history of the Mss. library of the Oriental Institute. It owes its origin to the foresight of the illustrious ruler the late Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III. It was in year 1893 that His Highness Maharaja Sayajirao III, the great ruler, gifted with uncommon perception conceived the idea of establishing a nucleus body for collection of Mss., their preservation and publication of books based on the fast disappearing wealth of important and rare Mss. in the series which is later on named as Gaekwad's Oriental Series. For this purpose he commissioned Shri Anantakrishna Shastri to collect the manuscripts from all over country. He collected about 10000 Mss. during his tour. The Royal collection of books, Mss. and illuminated scrolls was added to the collection and a separate Sanskrit Section was started in the Central Library (State Library) of Baroda. Day by day the number of Mss. and the activities of the section grew more and more and it was found necessary to separate it from the Central Library. Hence it was turned into an independent Oriental Institute in the year 1927. Thus Institute came into existance in 1927. With the establishment of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in year 1949, the Oriental Institute became a constituent Institution of the University.