Gilgit Manuscripts Vol 01

Author(s): Nalinaksha Dutt, D M Bhattacharya, Shivnath Sharma
Publisher: Government of Jammu

Page 8

PREFACE
In 1931 several Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts were discovered in a stupa near Gilgit. It was a chance discovery made by a cowboy. The Wazir of Gilgit took charge of the manuscripts but before he could bring them into his custody, a substantial portion of the manuscripts and all the painted covers had passed into the hands of adventurers. He got the mss. in bundles of jumbled up leaves with several lost or damaged. By the order of His Highness the Maharaja of Kashmir, the Wazir sent them to Srinagar. His Highness the Maharaja, a keen lover and patron of culture, realised the value of the mss. and decided to have them published, and entrusted the care of the treasures to the then Prime Minister. The treasures remained locked up for six or seven years in the Government Records Department till the assumption of office by the present Prime Minister Dewan Bahadur Gopalaswami Ayyangar, a man with determination and a definite policy. At the instance of his Chief Secretary, Mr. R. C. Kak, a life-long archæologist and a student of Sanskrit culture, he requested me last year to take up the work of editing the mss. for the Kashmir Durbar.
My attention to the finds was first drawn by that well-known indologist and patron of Indian culture, the editor of the Indian Historical Quarterly, Kumar Dr. Narendra Nath Law, who suggested to His Highness to have the mss. edited by competent Indian scholars and publish them in India. He took the initiative to send me to Kashmir in order to obtain first hand information about the valuable mss. The Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University, Dr. Shyamaprasad Mookerjee, whose enthusiasm for resuscitation of ancient Indian culture is too well-known to be mentioned, wanted me to obtain the mss. from the Kashmir Durbar if the Durbar de