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xxiv
VASISHTHA.
Moreover, in the section on women, Vasishtha V, 3-4, the author makes a cross-reference to the rahasyas, the section on secret penances, and quotes by anticipation half a Sloka which is actually found in chapter XXVIII. The inference to be drawn from these facts is, that the section on secret penances is not simply a later addition intended to supply an omission of the first writer, but that, for some reason or other, it has been remodelled. The answer to the question why this was done is suggested, it seems to me, partly by the state of the MSS. of the Vâsishtha Dharmasastra, and partly by the facts connected with the treatment of ancient works by the Pandits, which my examination of the libraries of Northern India has brought to lighti. MSS. of the Vâsishtha Dharmasastra are very rare, and among those found only three are complete. Some stop with chapter X, others with chapter XXI, and a few in the middle of the thirtieth Adhyâya. Moreover, most of them are very corrupt, and even the best exhibit some Sûtras which are hopeless. These circumstances show clearly that after the extinction of the Vedic school, with which the work originated, the Sûtra was for some time neglected, and existed in a few copies only, perhaps even in a single MS. The materials on which the ancient Hindus wrote, the birch bark and the palm leaves, are so frail that especially the first and last leaves of a Pothî are easily lost or badly damaged. Instances of this kind are common enough in the Gaina and Kasmîr libraries, where the beginning and still more frequently the end of many works have been irretrievably lost. The fate of the Vâsishtha Dharmasâstra, it would seem, has been similar. The facts related above make it probable that the MS. or MSS. which came into the hands of the Pandits of the special law schools, who revived the study of the work, was defective. Pieces of the last leaves which remained, probably showed the extent of the damage done, and the Pandits set to work at the restoration of the lost portions, just as the Kasmîrian Sahebrâm Pandit restored the Nîlamata-purâna for Mahârâga Ranavîrasimha. They,
1 See Report on a Tour in Kasmîr, Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xii, p. 33.
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