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DECEMBER, 1898.]
IN MEMORIAM GEORGE BÜHLER.
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incomparable energy so characteristic of him to the very end. First of all, he was anxious to develop and improve the colleges for a higher and more genere.! education of native teachers, and then new schoolbooks were procured and new regulations introduoed; wherever possible, new schools where founded, the existing schools carefully classified, systematic annual inspections of all colleges and schools were arranged, and finally, through Bühler's initiative, the salaries of teachers at secondary schools were considerably raised, and the masters at the lower schools were given opportunities of earning an annual increase of their salaries by especially good work. We may form an idea of Bühler's extensive activity in this administrative work from the fact that when he entered on his office in 1869 there were in the province 780 schools with 47,800 scholars, while at the end of his term of office in 1880 the number of schools had risen to 1,763 with 101,970 scholars.
However, while his time and energy were to such an extent placed at the service of the Administration, Bühler yet found it possible to render his official work, especially his inspections of schools and colleges (of which occasionally he used to give most interesting and vivid descriptions), at the same time fruitful in the highest degree for scholarly purposes. When he entered on his office as Educational Inspector he obtained from the Government, which bad already become aware of the important results of his first journey in search of MSS., the order and authority to search all libraries within reach in tho province for MSS, and to acquire for the Government any works of importance, Consequently, during his tours of inspection be communicated, in all the larger towns, with the learned Pandits, and enlisted agents who had to hunt up the libraries, carry on negotiations with the owners, and to compile lists of MSS. He soon found out that the number of books and libraries was enormous, and that more especially the Jainas possessed exceedingly rich treasures of MSS. As these efforts of Bühler were crowned by such unexpected results - during his very first year of inspecting he had succeeded in purchasing upwards of 200 important old MSS. and in acquiring catalogues containing something like 14,000 titles of works of the Brahmanical literature alone - be was commissioned to undertake several tours to different parts of India as far as Kashmir and Nepal, and from all these tours he returned with valuable treasures of MSS. and inscriptions (on stone, copperplates, coins, etc.). Especially famous became his tour to Kasbmir, when he discovered and acquired not only a great number of hitherto unknown Brahmanical works, but also an almost complete collection of the sacred books of the Digambara Jainas. Besides the purchases for the Indian Government Bühler also bought, with the permission thereof, large and systematic collections of MSS. for European libraries. Upwards of 5,000 MSS. have since those years become generally accessible to scholars, apart from numerous corrected copies of Sanskrit works, which he privately procured for scholars of all countries.
That Bühler in spite of his extensive practical work should have found it possible still to devote himself to literary pursuits in such an eminent degree, has always been a matter of surprise. His very first greater work, the Digest of Hindu Law, published by order of the Governor of Bombay (1867 and 1869) became a standard. From numerous law-books, which at that time mostly existed in MS. only and had to be collated for the first time, and from information gathered from the mouths of Shastris versed in the customary law, West and Bühler compiled a codex of the law of inheritance, partition, and adoption, which has since been repeatedly edited, translated into the vernaculars, and enjoys great authority throughout the whole of India.
Next Bühler, whose school-books for Indian colleges have already been mentioned, founded, together with Kielhorn (then Professor of Sanskrit in Poona, and now in Göttirgen) the Bombay Sanskrit Series - an undertaking which was intended to give young native scholars an opportunity of learning European methods of criticism in editing texts, and to procure cheap and good editions of Sanskrit standard works for use in Indian schools and colleges. Bühler himself published in this collection the Panchatantra, Dandin's Dabakumdracharita, the historical romance VikramdAkadeva. charita of the 11th century which be himself had discovered, the ancient law-book of  pastamba, and others. His catalogues of MSS. and his well-known Reports are of great scientific value, and his epigraphic researches in connection with the amous edicts of King Piyadasi-Asoks and other Indian inscriptions have marked a new epoch and led to new results of the highest importance.
