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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
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DECEMBER, 1928
and ancient history of India and the Far East. As the utility of such a work of reference becomes fully realized and its use extended, it is hoped that cooperation towards its preparation will no longer be withheld, and financial assistance will be more generously accorded.
The index, which is restricted to authors' names, having regard to the general arrangement of the contents, has been suitably prepared; the plate reproduction is of outstanding excellenco ; and the paper and printing leave nothing to be desired : in fact the whole out-turn of this inaugural volume is worthy of the three distinguished scholars forming the editorial board, who are to be congratulated on its appearance.
C.E.A.W.O.
editors have done a great service to the cause of Indology by bringing out this useful catalogue and we feel indebted not only to them and the B. &0. R. Society but also to the B. &0. Government for bringing to light such valuable material for the study of early Indian culture. One would, indeed, be justi. fied in remarking that it is one of those good deeds which will be never lost.
HIRANANDA SASTRI.
A DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF MANUSCRIPTS IN MITHILA. Volutae 1 (Smriti Literature.)
The B. &0. R. Society under the patronage of the Bihar and Orissa Government, has been carrying on a very fruitful search for Sanskrit and Prakrit literature during the last ten years or so. Nine years of this decade were devoted to the search in Mithila and the district of Puri in Orissa, the two Important centres of Sanskrit learning. During this period of investigation very valuable manuscripts have been found, which are now being catalogued by Mr. K. P. Jayaswal and Dr. A. P. Banerji Sastri, the two learned Editors of the Society's Journal. The manuscripts for discovered in Mithila have been arranged in ten or eleven different sections
such as Smriti, Veda, Vyakarana, etc., the anonymous or the modern ones being separately classed as Miscellaneous with a view to issuing their catalogues in different volumes. The catalogue under notice is the first of the series. It gives us a descriptive list of various Smriti works and Nibandhas or digests, including the highly inte. resting Ratndkaras of Chandesvara, with which, thanks to Mr. Jayaswal's laudable devotion to the cause of our ancient learning, we are already familiar, and enables us to have a with advalókana of not less than 455 such books. The Smritis, I believe, were written according to the exigencies of time, and their value for the social history of India can hardly Le overrated. As Mithild had all along been one of the chier centres or branmanic or Hindu carning where Smriti literature seems to have had an un. interrupted development, the manuscripts descri- bed in this volume-home of which seem to be in. digenous to it--will amply repay study. The erudite
MANGALORE, A Historical Sketch by GEORGE M.
MORAES. Preface by FATHER HERAS, S.J. Mangalore, Codialbail Press, 1927.
This little book of 94 pages is, Father Heras tells us, "the first product of the St. Xavier's College Indian Historical Research Institute" by a research student, and has been written clearly under the guidance of a tutor. As such, it is a useful little work and puts together much information about that west coast port.
The author has under the conditions set about his history in the right way, and I may say at once that his effort has resulted in a book which may well be imitated by other research students. He prints his "unpublished documents in a series of appendioes and gives a full list of his "published documents," some of which must be quite rare, reminding us of an old saying-"A book is not necessarily published because it has been printed."
Mangalore has never been an important town, but like many others of its kind, it has taken its share in general history. So in discussing its separate histowy we are taken into the doings of the greater personages and peoples that have worked and struggled round it. In this way mdelights are thrown on the work of the early Christians, the Portuguese, the Nayaks of Ikeri, and travellers like Pietro della Valle. Incidentally "the King of the Gioghi," mentioned by Varthema and others, plays his little part. Lastly we come to Haidar 'All and Tipu Sultan, and the not very elevating story of the British occupation. In regard to this tale of the captivity of the Christians at Seringapatam by Tipu, I would refer the author to Harvey's History of Burma in relation to figures in Indian and Far Eastern story. He gives his reasons for roughly dividing them by ten to get at something like the truth. By this "rule" the number of the captives is reduced to 6,000, and as 2,000 was the number of those that eventually returned home it would seem to be not far wrong.
R. C. TEMPLE.
