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that a systematic study and research has been made on a subject like this. Much welcome light has been shed here about the ancient art of calligraphy as well as on hundreds of manuscript libraries in Rajasthan and outside, by reading which vivid picture comes before our eyes how knowledge was preserved and dissemineted in ancient times. Owing to the new arrangements of the chief manuscript stores and their published lists, it is now for more easy to make use of the MSS, than what it was about thirtyfive years back when I visited Jaipur in search of Apabhramsa works and had to make huge efforts for about two weeks in order to get even a glimpse of the Bhandar at Amer. Dr. Kashiwal has laid the scholarly world under a deep debt of gratitute by his efforts in compiling the lists and by giving them the present valuable work. I very much wish that similar efforts were made regarding the other parts of our vast country, and their literary treasures are made fully known to the scholarly world before they are irretrievably lost by sheer passage of time and lack of that system of copying and recopying the mss. which kept them alive for centuries in the part.
Jabalpur University, 8th September, 1967
HL Jain
