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2
CAMDALEHA
It belongs to the Palace Library, Trivandrum, and bears the No. 1497. It is a palm-leaf Ms., 8 by 2 inches in size and containing 42 leaves. It is written in Malayalam script with 9 to 11 lines on a page. Nothing could be ascertained about the age of this Ms. which is noticed as No. 3207, D.C.S.M., Vol. 4, Part I A. I have neither used the palm-leaf Ms. kha, nor have I got a complete transcript of it; all my readings of kha stand for the entries (at the bottom of the pages of ka) which are about 135 in number and record variants of different length. They are usually connected with the Prakrit text and rarely with the chāyā.
This is a transcript of a MS., No. R 3207 (a), belonging to the Govt. Oriental MSS. Library, Madras (war-time camp, Tirupati ); and I got it through the kind offices of the Curator, Dr. A. Shankaran. This Madras MS. called Candralekhā, I am informed, is in Grantha characters, on paper and in good condition. The size is 10 by 9 inches, and the work covers 43 pages. The actual title of the Ms. is 'Manaveda-caritam'. It was copied in 1920-21 from a мs. of M. R. Ry. A. Karunakar Menon Avl., B. A., B. L., High Court Vakil, Chalapuram, Calicut, Malabar Dt. Following the Madras MS., the transcript supplied to me contains only the Sanskrit chaya and no Prakrit text at all. It gives the Sanskrit rendering of the Prakrit speeches assigning them to different characters but omits the stage-directions obviously because they are in Sanskrit. The prose and verses are not in any way distinguishable. It is full of lacunae, small and big; some passages at the beginning are misplaced; the contents are not well preserved; by itself it is not of much value, but when read with ka it gives help in many places. It is full of scribal errors. It uses
for here and there. The transcript opens with the title: मानवेदचरितम्, and ends thus : इति चतुर्थं यवनिकान्तरम् । समाप्तोऽयं ग्रन्थः ॥
C-My friend Dr. V. Raghavan, Madras, drew my attention to the fact that the text and chaya of Candralekha was being published in the Samskṛta-sahitya-parisat-patram, Calcutta, for 1932. I procured the numbers (Vol. XIV, Nos. 10 and 11, February and March 1932) and found that the text and chaya of the first Yavanikantara and a few lines of those of the second one (ending with pekkhadu dāva maharão at II. 1. 5) are printed so far. Still it remains incomplete. These numbers reached my hands after the first forme of the text and chaya was struck. I learn from Dr. S. K. Chatterji that it was being edited by the then Editor, Prof. Kshitis
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