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[DECEMBER, 1869
Appendices illustrating the relation of the Manusmriti to other Hindu lawbooks. And it also contains a most valuable introduction of 133 pages, in which he not only continues his investigations into the history of the Hindu law books, but also enters into discussions on some of the most important chronological and historical questions touching almost every department of ancient Hindu literature.
344
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
Amongst other things he discusses in this introduction the relation of Manu's law book to the Epic literature of the Hindus, and for the first time grapples with what is perhaps the most difficult problem in the history of the Indian literature, the chronological and literary problem of the gigantic Hinda epic, the Mahabharata. In dealing with this question he again evinces his eminently historical instinct. Here, too, he was utterly dissatisfied with the 'inner' criticism and the vague hypotheses defended by Prof. Holtzmann and other scholars. Eagerly he sought for epigraphic and literary documents from which any secure dates as to the history of the Hindu epic could be obtained. In his Contributions to the History of the Mahdbharata (published together with Prof. Kirste's paper on Kshemendra's Bharatamanjari in the Sitzungsberichte der Kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Wien, 1892) he has shown how, by the patient study of inscriptions and by a comparison of other branches of literature, the dates of which are more or less approximately known, it is possible to bring light even into this darkest of all problems in the history of ancient Hindu literature. He was most anxious to interest his pupils in this much neglected branch of Sanskrit literature. It was on his suggestion that my articles on the South-Indian recension of the Mahabharata were printed in the Indian Antiquary, and the last letters of the deceased which I received from him during the last months preceding his death, are an eloquent and melancholy proof to me of the great and lively interest he took in all questions of Mahabharata criticism. In this department of Indology his loss will he felt by no one more painfully and more acutely than by the present writer, whose first thought in all his Indological studies has hitherto always been, what will Bühler say ?'
We are often told that to make discoveries is merely a matter of luck, and some people might think it was just Bühler's good luck which enabled him to make so many important discoveries, which in their turn led to his fruitful labours in all departments of Indian research Now it may be called 'luck' that at the time when he was in India there were still so many unknown treasures hidden in Indian libraries. But surely no one was better qualified that Bühler to unearth these treasures.
First of all, he was stimulated by an enthusiasm for his particular line of research, of which only he can have some idea who has ever seen him, standing with sparkling eyes and almost childlike delight before some impression of a difficult inscription from which he had succeeded, after patient and often renewed attempts, in reading the correct Sanskrit words This enthusiasm was the main spring of the zeal and energy with which he pursued his researches. Moreover, he had acquired a thorough knowledge of the languages, in which he could freely converse with native scholars, on whose assistance he had greatly to depend in his travels of research. But above all it was his hearty sympathy and tact which won him the love and affection of the Natives and, whenever wanted, their ready help and co-operation. He counted among his friends members of all classes of the native population, among learned Brahmans, as well as among the Jains monks. He tells us (in a German paper read at the Vienna Oriental Museum in 1883,1 describing his Journey through the Indian. desert") how much of his success in searching Jaina libraries he owed to his intimate friendship with the Sripaj Jinamuktisuri, the head of a portion of the Kharatara-Gachchha. He was never tired of mentioning, in words of grateful recognition, any services rendered to him by Pandits. I need only refer to the kind and hearty words of friendship which, in the very first pages of his Detailed Report, he devotes to Pandit Badhakishn, who had brought him the first MSS. of his Kasmir collection, and how carefully he mentions every one of the Native scholars, whose assistance had been of any use to him during his search for MSS. in Kasmir.
Printed in the Oesterreichische Rundschau, 1888, pp. 517-535.
