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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
oriental literature is already known from his Catalogue of the Arabic books at Gotha. The reviewer has only two faults to find:-(1) There is no systematic reference to copies of the books in other libraries; (2) The author in the case of the minor tazkira gives full lists of the poets mentioned in them; of these there are about 4,000; our knowledge of Persian poetry is certainly thereby increased, but instead of so many names of mere rhymesters it would have been better to have given extracts from rarer works.
The indices are copious: these include the geographical names and ansdb, lists of Indian words in Arabic transcriptions, and indices of MSS. in which are found seals, miniatures, remarkable arabesques, beautiful bindings, &c. The Catalogue of Dr. Pertsch will undoubtedly take an honourable place in the library of all students of Persian literature.
The first volume of the Arabic Catalogue of Prof. Ahlwardt embraces about the sixth part of the vast collection of the Berlin Royal Library, which in all possesses about 6,500 vols. of Arabic MSS. The great characteristic of the Library is its richness in the works of all periods of Arabic literature.
The following MSS. are especially worthy of attention:
Fragments of the Encyclopaedia of Nuvairt (with the author's autograph) written in A.H. 738, an old copy, about A.H. 600, of a work of Khwarizmi which up to this time was considered unique in the Leiden collection, a work by Gazzari, extracts from the Quran in Kufic writing, two very rare Kufic fragments of an historical character, a Quran of 'A.H. 883, with Turkish interlinear translation, three copies of Abd-u'lAziz-al-Kinâni, a work of Abu Obaid-al-KârimIbn-Sallam, almost unique, rare and important works on the various readings of the Quran by Mikhi, a valuable Dictionary to the Quran by Rajab Isfahânt, and some very rare commentaries on the Quran forming a complete series.
.a
The Catalogue of Prof. Ahlwardt is compiled npon a plan in complete contrast to those of similar works. In the descriptions of the books, the European literature on the subject is completely ignored. The various parts of.. manuscript are described under different heads, and therefore we do not realise what were the literary tastes of the compilers of the recueils. The reader is obliged to be constantly referring to the indices. There are quantities of cross, references. It would have been better to describe each manuscript separately, and to add, as Dr. Rieu does, at the end a systematic index
[SEPTEMBER, 1889.
to the subjects. As regards ignoring European literature, it leads to constant repetitions. The author catalogues with equal accuracy the rarest MSS. and those in everybody's hands. At the end of each section he gives a kind of summary of Arabic literature on the subject, but the reviewer does not think this beneficial. The history of Arabic literature will be produced by the united labours of many generations, founded on a great number of monographs, and in no other way. The ordinary system of a detailed description only of unknown or little known books is the best.
The reviewer then proceeds to shew some instances of confusion in the Catalogue, but concludes that he is far from wishing to undervalue the importance of the work of Prof. Ahlwardt. He looks upon the Catalogue as a triumph of erudition and industry, and dwells with affectionate enthusiasm upon the time when he sat at the feet of the author. For a course of more than twenty years Prof. Ahlwardt devoted himself for ten hours a day to the compilation of this Catalogue. But great as is the work, the author might have found some more original task more worthy of his splendid abilities. W. R. MORFILL.
A LITERARY QUERY.
Can any of your readers, more especially those in South India, give me any particulars as to the authorship or date of a Sanskrit philosophical work called Gurujñdnavásishtha ? A quarto edition of a portion (Jñdna-Kanda) of this work appeared at Madras in 1882, under the editorship of Appayadikshita of Pattamaḍai (? a descendant of the well-known writer on alamkára, etc.) It would seem, from the preface in Telugu, that the book has other Kandas (Updsana-ko, Karma-k°); but if it is connected with the Yoga-vásishtha or Jñána-vdsishtha-rámáyana, it must belong to an unknown recension of that work, as the latter work is not divided into Kandas.
More recently, an extract from the same Gurujñânavásistha has reached me (Kanda I,' vada i. adhyaya, xi. 45 xiii.), under the curious title Yajnavardha-bhagavadgitá, and edited with an extensive Telugu commentary by a scholar whose name is itself a crux, Mantri Lakshmi Nârâyana. This appeared recently, undated, at the Adi-Kalanidhi Press, Madras. As to the editor's name, I at first took Mantri for a kind of family epithet, and the remainder for a compound personal name, children being, in North India at least, often dedicated to two deities. But this supposition is rather discountenanced by the circumstance that in a Sanskrit Slôka at the
