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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1898.
A. D. 1100. It is of course well known now that since then much older Sanskrit MSS. have been discovered in Nepal, Japan, and Kashgar.
Throughout his travels in search for Sanskrit MSS. Bühler paid special attention to the Jaina MSS., and it is through his exertions that numerous specimens have become accessible to European scholars in the libraries of London and Berlin, as well as in Indian libraries. Thus it is, that we are now comparatively well informed about the history and the religious system of a sect, of which hardly anything was known thirty years ago, is chiefly due to Bühler's efforts. For his discoveries and collections of MSS. led to the excellent works of Profs. Albrecht Weber, Hermann Jacobi, and Ernst Leumann, in the department of Jaina religion and literature. It is no small comfort to know that Bühler's labour will not be lost, and that in this branch of Hindu literature these scholars will continue the work, which he had inaugurated with so great success.
The general results of Bühler's indefatigable labours in the search for MSS. are found in numerous Government Reports and Catalogues;-e. g., in his Catalogue of Sanskrit MSS. contained in the Private Libraries of Gujarat, Kathiávád, Kachchh, Sind and Khandes, published 1871-73, in the annual reports for the years 1870-80 of the Royal Asiatic Society on the progress of Oriental learning (generally reprinted in the Indian Antiquary), in many of the volumes of the Journal of the German Oriental Society, and in the easter volumes of Weber's Indische Studien, we constantly come across references to new discoveries made by Bühler, discoveries of works pertaining to all branches of Indian Literature, which were either altogether unknown before, or of the re-discovery of which scholars had long given up all hope. These labours reached their climax in the famous Detailed Report of a Tour in Search of Sanskrit Manuscripts in Kaimir, Rajputana and Central India (Bombay, 1877), a very mine of information about almost every point of Sanskrit Literature. Details were given here about numerous works which had hitherto been entirely unknown, and about authors whose very names had never been heard before.
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To mention only one instance, it is in this Detailed Report that we first hear of Kshemendra, the Kasmir poet and polyhistor whose numerous works, though of small value as works of art, are of the greatest importance for the history of the contemporaneous literature and especially also for the history of the Hindu epic literature. It is impossible to write a history of Indian literature now-a-days, without constantly referring to Bühler's Detailed Report, which contains not only names and titles, and brief notices of numerous works and authors, but also most valuable discussions on the literary and historical importance of the discovered MSS.
For Bühler was not only a successful discoverer and zealous collector of MSS., but he was also most eager to use his discoveries for literary and historical investigations. Though he never grudged the treasures, which he had discovered, to other scholars, and though he was ever ready to place any MSS. he had found at the disposal of scholars in Europe or India, who were anxious to edit texts or to avail themselves of the new MSS. for literary purposes, - he also took his share in the laborious task of editing texts, and above all he never lost sight of the one great aim he had in view, to bring light into the dark ages of the ancient history of India, and to disentangle the chaos of the history of ancient Hindu Literature.
How often have we heard complaints about the unsatisfactory state of history in India ! We are told that, as regards the history of ancient India, we have nothing but fables and legends, no real historical facts at all; that, with an enormous mass of literary compositions, we have no chronology in these works that could be depended on. Well known are the words of the great American scholar, W. D. Whitney, that 'respecting the chronology of this development, or the date of any class of writings, still more of any individual work, the less that is said the better,' that all dates given in Indian literary history are pins set up to be bowled down again. All these complaints, which twenty years ago were still fully justified, are
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