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ગુજરાતી સાહિત્ય પરિષદ
possessors to hand over their literary treasures for safe preservation to the then Government of Bombay had failed, they had in their respective reports made appreciative references to them. The Government of His Highness Sir SAYAJIRAQ Gaikwar in whose territory Patan is situated, though not prepared to exert any pressure on the said Jains with a view to inducing them to part with their precious heritage, be it even for the benefit of the world of scholars as a whole, did once manage to persuade them to allow the late Mr. C. D. DALAL, a Jain scholar at the Sanskrit library at Baroda, to examine all the Mss. and take such copious notes from them as to enable him to prepare an exhaustive and up-to-date catalogue thereof. This scholar did not unfortunately live long enough to prepare such a catalogue and publish it, but the task that he had left incomplete was completed by his successor Pandit LALCHAND and the projected catalogue has been recently published in the G. O. Series. It could be gathered from the notes that Mr. DALAL had made that some very valuable Mss. had been partially eaten up by white ants and that if proper steps were not taken to house the remaining ones suitably there was the danger of their similar destruction. The Government of His Highness on being apprised of this appointed a committee with a view to making recommendations for taking proper steps to prevent that catastrophe. As the Jain community at Patan as a whole was unwilling to hand over the collections
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